The Redhunter

Ask human-rights advocates to name their most stalwart friend on Capitol Hill, and Northern Virginia's own Rep. Frank Wolf, co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, is short-listed time and again. The deeply religious conservative Republican and 26-year House veteran has been a tireless defender of the persecuted and abused around the world. ...

It would be hard indeed to single out one achievement. The inveterate Mr. Wolf is credited in no particular order with helping Tibetans, Kurds, Iraqis, Vietnamese, Darfurians, Bosnians, North Koreans, Cubans and too many other oppressed nations to list. He has visited Beijing's Tiananmen-dissident-holding Prison No. 1; talked to political prisoners in Soviet gulags before Communism's fall; and seen teeming Serbian prisons during the war-torn 1990s. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks he has traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Israel, Kuwait and Iraq to highlight human-rights concerns.

Much of Mr. Wolf's achievement is measured in terms of activists not imprisoned, dissidents not murdered and war crimes not committed. Such is the power an American congressman's spotlight throws on the world's otherwise dark corners. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- not normally effusive in her praise for Republican lawmakers -- last year called Mr. Wolf "an unmatched leader in his commitment to human rights," an indication of the cross-party appeal his labors hold. Lately Mr. Wolf has urged Virginians to divest themselves of companies doing business in Sudan, where the bloodshed in Darfur continues.

In a year when a bruising Senate race is leaving many Virginians feeling raw, we can be thankful for the conscientious Mr. Wolf. He reminds us that good people can still succeed in Washington.

Next, excerpts from the Post's endorsement

OVER THE YEARS we have had our disagreements with Rep. Frank R. Wolf , the Republican who has represented Northern Virginia's 10th District since 1981. But those have been outweighed by our respect for his undisputed diligence, candor, active legislative approach and passionate commitment to human rights in some of the world's darkest corners. Those qualities continue to make Mr. Wolf part of a diminishing breed in the House -- of legislators whose independent-mindedness and pragmatic problem-solving outweigh their partisanship. He deserves reelection this year against health-care expert Judy Feder, dean of Georgetown's Public Policy Institute. ...

In addition to his habitual attentiveness to an array of local issues in Northern Virginia -- congested roads, stressed transit systems and the rising threat of Latino gangs -- Mr. Wolf has made a particular mark in this latest congressional term by his constructive national role. It was chiefly at his prodding that Congress established a bipartisan commission on Iraq, led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III...

Ms. Feder (his opponent) is a smart, credible candidate whose broad experience and deep knowledge of health-care policy have given her a prominent role in that national debate for years; she was a senior official in the Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration. She makes a reasonable case that Mr. Wolf, by some of the party-line votes he has cast, is complicit in assorted policy failures of the Bush administration, particularly its reckless tax cuts.

But if Mr. Wolf has proved anything in 26 years in Congress, it is that he is more than a party-line Republican. His repeated visits to Iraq, Darfur, Afghanistan, Chechnya and other unlovely hot spots reflect his zeal for human rights. For that he has earned respect on both sides of Capitol Hill's partisan divide and a 14th term in Congress.

As the post notes, Judy Feder is a "health care expert." Her website reveals that "in 1993, she was appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services, where she worked to expand health insurance coverage, effectively manage Medicare and Medicaid, and assure the safety of food and drugs." Uh huh. Just what we don't need; another liberal who wants to socialize our health care system.

Reelect Frank Wolf. I campaigned for him in 2004 and I'm getting out again for him when I can. He's a good man, serves our region and country well, and deserves reelection to another term in Congress.