FIGHT! FIGHT!

This is precisely what needs to happen. Vigorous debate and the sharpening of arguments. Long overdue. All are welcome.

The big points:

-in the 2004 election, both Democrats and Republicans were roughly equally successful in getting their respective bases to the polls. Notwithstanding early post-election reports about "moral values," national security and terrorism seem to have been the issues that tipped the election in George W. Bush's favor.

-the war on terror, so called, will be with us for the foreseeable future, for at least the next decade, and very likely longer.

As far as countering the Republican program with facts, it really shouldn't be too hard, given that the facts are clearly on our side: Democrats can point out that Bush tried to do Iraq and Afghanistan on the cheap, and that both have subsequently descended into chaos, Afghanistan somewhat less so than Iraq. Democrats can point out that Bush and the Republican Congress have shamefully underfunded domestic security on everything from port and airline security to firemen, police, and EMTs, while at the same time ramming through tax cuts for the wealthy and maintaining a fiscal policy which has the dollar in serious decline. America is unqestionably weaker because of their leadership.

Countering long-held perceptions will obviously be lot harder, as it involves destroying an entire meme complex which forces the Democratic Party to reestablish its national security bona fides every four years, and allows the GOP to begin every race essentially a lap ahead. More detailed thoughts on this are here.

To sum up: The Republican Party has owned the national security issue at least since Reagan took office in 1980. There are a few reasons for this, but I think the most obvious is that their position is simple: We rule, and they suck. And we'll kick anybody's ass who says different.

It's certainly not simply a matter of Democrats jumping up and down and shouting "WE'RE SERIOUS ABOUT DEFENDING THE COUNTRY, TOO!!", it's a matter of developing a program that counters both the simplistic, priapic militarism of the GOP and the reflexive aversion to American military power of a portion of the Democratic base. People can disagree on how significant this portion actually is, but it is unquestionably there, and given that winning the issue obviously involves bringing it to the front of the party platform, they will have to be dealt with in one way or another. The Democratic Party needs to take its own temperature on this score and discover whether and to what extent the issue would be a deal-breaker, especially if running against a candidate who was not as unifyingly repellant as Bush.

And while I agree that it's stoopid to treat Michael Moore as the embodiment of Democratic thought (is anyone other than Republicans actually doing this?), it's just unserious to contend that Moore and his acolytes are not significant in Democratic politics right now. It's not that many, or probably any, Democrats are taking long phone calls with him, but they can tell the way the wind blows. Any documentary which grosses $120 million domestic is a cultural phenomenon, Jim. And there's simply no way that the Democratic leadership shows up at the Washington, DC premiere of a film like Fahrenheit 9/11 unless they feel that they either have something to gain by being there, or something to lose by not being there. That, in and of itself, makes Moore a player.

Finally, it's correct to point out that the Republicans have a hell of a lot more extremist wackos on their side, that those wackos are skillfully and unapologetically integrated into the Republican attack, indeed that many of those wackos actually occupy positions of party leadership. And it's true that Republicans are in no position whatsoever to expect Democrats decry or disown anyone. Fine. But I'm not going to decide what's right for me or my party based upon what the Republicans get away with. I think it's obvious that if we start using the Republican Party as our north star for what we think should be acceptable in politics, we're all pretty much screwed.