It's The National Security, Stupid!

At least some Democrats get it: to win the White House in '08, the Dems have to articulate a credible national security position other than "Bush Blew Iraq."

Yesterday, a number of prominent centrist Democrats spoke at the unveiling of a book of essays on national security policy published by the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. (http://www.dlc.org/ )

The book, With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty (Rowman & Littlefield), includes essays by a number of Democratic security and foreign policy experts--of whom there are many.

The unveiling featured appearances by assumed Democratic presidential contenders Mark Warner (former Va. governor) and Evan Bayh (Ind. senator). Bayh put his finger on the mark when he said voters "are not going to trust us" on things like the economy and education "if they don't first trust us with their lives."

Of course, Republicans, especially Bush's brain--Karl Rove--have outmaneuvered Democrats politically on the national security issue, as illustrated by the 2004 presidential campaign. John Kerry, trying to dance around his vote authorizing the President to use force in Iraq, managed to get caught up in the debate over whether we should have invaded Iraq, rather than define the national security debate in his own terms. His best message--that Bush diverted enormous assets from the real enemy (Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda in Pakistan/Afghanistan)--got lost in the political fog.

Can Democrats do better the next time around? Hard to say. Undoubtedly, Democrats have some of the smartest foreign policy and security experts in the business on their side--one need look no further than PPI's book to see that.

But can Democrats figure out how to sell their message politically, particularly if the Republicans nominate someone like John McCain, whose anti-terror credentials will be hard to assail?

Here's a hint. To be successful on national security, Democrats will have to be unafraid of offending some of their fringe constituencies, particularly pacifists, a few civil libertarians, some Arab/Islamic activists, and some immigrants rights activists. In other words, Democrats are going to have to use some tough talk on terrorism that just might step on a few people's toes.

While its fortunate, from a political standpoint, that Bush's incompetent handling of Iraq has squandered the Republicans' credibility on the terror issue, that alone won't be enough--Democrats still have to pass their own test.

Worse yet, while Bush's incompetence is a politically fortuitous, it puts the next President--of either party--in a precarious position, with far more limited options than we had a few years ago when America still had credibility. Sadly, W and his cronies have made it a far more dangerous world.