Dems' Strong Moves on National Security Undermined By D.C. Elites

Yesterday, I explored how some Democrats are helping Karl Rove push the GOP's dishonest narrative about Democrats and national security. It was a depressing exploration, to be sure, especially considering the poll data that shows the public would be receptive to an alternative foreign policy that contrasts sharply with the neoconservative orthodoxy that has severely weakened our country's security. And today we see the follow up - Democrats are finally making some encouraging moves, and yet the D.C. Democratic Insiders Club is doing everything they can to undermine that progress.

In two stories, we see the Party try to move forward on national security in a serious way, and then in one other story, we see how the Washington, D.C. Establishment is trying to undermine those steps. This is the progressive vs. insulated insider fissure that is ripping the party apart - and it's now on full display.

First the good news. Today's Boston Globe reports that the Democratic Party is considering formally adopting former Reagan Assistant Defense Secretary Larry Korb's proposal to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. I have written about this proposal before, urging Democrats to embrace it. And it seems like the party may be on its way to doing that. Such a move would be a major step towards putting Iraq front and center in the political debate - exactly where it should be, considering it is the most pressing national security issue of the day.

The second piece of good news comes from the Toledo Blade. The newspaper's piece today is a follow up to the Blade's story yesterday about Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) being attacked for voting to reform America's intelligence apparatus in the 1990s. The original piece regurgitated the GOP's crass effort to convince the public to believe that those who voted to reform intelligence/defense spending in the 1990s basically are responsible for America being hit by terrorists on 9/11. As I noted yesterday, the storyline itself is filled with hypocrisy and inconsistency. In fact, those who voted to reform America's intelligence and defense apparatus before 9/11 were the visionaries trying to fix the clearly broken system before we got hit.

And we see in today's Toledo Blade that Brown is not just going to sit there and take the attacks on his national security votes - he's actually articulating how his position is the position to be proud of, and how those who didn't try to reform the broken system in the 1990s are the ones who have questions to answer.

"We wanted more oversight of what was happening," Brown said. "Intelligence gathering, they had a lot of money and were not using it well. And clearly in 9/11, the Bush Administration had intelligence they didn't use. We needed internal reforms in intelligence gathering...When they go after me on defense and intelligence and all that, I'm going right back at them. These guys are failing at [national security] every day. They're not going to get away with saying we're soft, because we're not."

That's exactly the way to turn the debate around - and it should be a model for other candidates. You don't wait for your opponents to hit you and then respond by pretending you didn't actually do what you did. You go right back at them, show how what you did was the right thing to do, and indict your opponents for not doing the same thing. This is especially simple on national security, where the images of fiery chaos in Iraq juxtaposed next to a taunting Osama bin Laden on the evening news keeps reinforcing that the GOP has weakened this country's national security.

Unfortunately - but not surprisingly - the professional election losers in Washington are still out there desperate to undermine the party on national security. This group of insulated foreign policy elites and so-called "strategists," sitting in the comfortable confines of their suites in Washington, are the ones who have pushed Democrats to obediently support the bomb-em-all-to-hell neoconservatism that has endangered America (they are partially described in Ari Berman's article entitled "The Strategic Class").

We see this strategic class rear its head in today's Roll Call newspaper, in yet another story where Democrats go to the newspapers to discuss their supposed "strategy" (question: how "strategic" for Democratic "strategists" to keep pitching stories to newspapers about Democrats lacing their decisions on national security with political considerations?). The story notes one Democratic aide saying "What’s going on is there’s a realization in the leadership of the party that there needs to be a focus on national security." That's terrific. But then the story notes that "sources say Democratic leaders know they will never find a singular Iraq policy around which to rally and campaign" and then - pathetically - that these sources claim that the party can win elections merely by "promoting strong military and security initiatives separate from, but not exclusive of, the war in Iraq."

This is even more pathetic than Rep. Rahm Emanuel's (D) past comments that Democrats will only have a position on Iraq "at the right time." Beltway Democrats finally know they need to make national security central to their 2006 campaign, but actually think they can do that without frontally addressing Iraq, the most pressing national security issue of our generation. How out of touch can you be?

There's more:

"'There’s been a strategic decision,' said a senior Congressional Democratic source. 'There will not be a unified position on Iraq...There’s a recognition, pragmatically, that [a unified stand on Iraq] ain’t there, it hasn’t been there, and isn’t going to be there.'...Another Democratic leadership source said individual Democrats will continue to talk about their own stance on Iraq, but 'we are not going to make a party position' on the war."

So there you have it folks. Iraq is clearly one of President Bush's biggest liabilities - but only if Democrats have the guts to take a serious position and make that serious position the official position of the party (and not just the position of individual - albeit courageous - lawmakers). The Boston Globe piece indicates that parts of the party may be starting to understand the need to do this, the Toledo Blade piece shows us an example of a candidate successfully redefining the national security debate in one of the most important swing states in America. And the Roll Call piece shows us that the insulated Democratic Insiders Club, wholly out of touch with reality, is out bragging to newspapers that they have made a "strategic" decision not to have a position on war, yet thinks they can still make national security a major focus of their election campaign. They are doing this even as polls have long shown the public is upset about the direction of the war, even as momentum builds to force the party to take a clear position, and even as courageous candidates are out there at the grassroots level trying to redefine the national security debate.

Who will win out in this contest? It's a good question - but you can bet on one thing: if those out there fighting the real, on-the-ground political battles by taking a strong position on Iraq and national security do not win and do not force the party to get serious, then 2006 is going to be another depressing election season. That may not make any difference to the comfortable-in-the-minority operatives in Washington, or to the consulting class of professional election losers, but it will mean another two years of arch-conservative domination in America; another two years of a misguided war enflaming anti-American passions throughout the world; another two years of putting our troops needlessly at risk; and another two years of policies that are weakening America's national security.

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