Alan, Hillary and Obama are tiptoeing around a platform like the one you describe, but they don’t articulate it. (Don’t get me wrong, they’re both very articulate) They come off looking like waffling temperature-takers. Keep watching Obama, though. I predict he’s gonna nail Hillary (and the rest) on this one. You’ll notice he doesn’t have a “clear” foreign policy position yet. Look out when he does. Hillary’s back is against the wall, because she can’t escape the Iraq vote problem. She’s already been trapped parsing her words like her husband. Is anybody looking forward to more of that?

DosPeros, I predict Obama’s foreign policy plank will be identical to your post. Rudy did the Dems a favor by framing it in these terms.

Great chain, all

Just once I’d like to hear a major Dem stand up and say “George Bush is 100% correct about the seriousness of the threats posed to us. But he’s wrong about the solutions. Here’s what we should be doing instead…”

I don’t know why Dems don’t speak that way. But, until they do, they are vulnerable to the kinds of accusations thrown around by Giuliani.

Also, thanks for pointing out a way the Democrats can turn their perceived weaknesses into their strengths instead of answering, “Yeah, well…um…you’re meen 2 me!”

“Yes, we were on defense, but the ‘defense’ sucked and thus we were successfully attacked. The goal of winning the WOT should be, in fact, to get the U.S. back in a defensive posture. In order to that, you have commit resources to building an adequate defense, obviously better than pre-9/11. The saying, “The best defense is a good offense” works with football games. It doesn’t work so well with national security because it means you are constantly at war.”

But all the Dems do is nag and complain and badger — which makes them look weak on national security, because real men don’t whine.

It could be that he garnered that idea because of the above quote from the speech. Giuliani says we were attacked because we were “on defense” and that Democrats will put us back “on defense” implying that, indeed, Dems will allow another attack to happen. Of course, he didn’t say it outright, but the implication is clear.

I mean who looks at Kucinich and sees “Commander In Chief�?

Umm…who takes Kucinich seriously again?

In any case, it directly echo’s what Dick Cheney said before the 2004 election, so it would hardly be unprecedented.

And in the same vain, here’s how Giuliani described being on defense in 2004:

GIULIANI: And worse, they also learned that their cause would be taken more seriously almost in direct proportion to the horror of their attack.

Terrorist acts became like a ticket to the international bargaining table. How else to explain Yasser Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize while he was supporting a plague of terrorism in the Middle East and undermining any chance of peace?

Before September 11, we were living with an unrealistic view of our world, much like observing Europe appease Hitler or trying to accommodate the Soviet Union through the use of mutually assured destruction.

President Bush decided that we could no longer be just on defense against global terrorism, we must also be on offense.

Well, it does fit at least SOME of the Democratic Presidential candidates. I mean who looks at Kucinich and sees “Commander In Chief”?

But you are right, Rudy doesn’t say what Politico (or Drudge) says he says.