Are Democrats weak on national security?

Senator Clinton has come out swinging against President Bush's (illegal) domestic spying program, the AP reports, calling his explanations (i.e., his self-defence) "strange" and "far-fetched": "Obviously, I support tracking down terrorists. I think that's our obligation. But I think it can be done in a lawful way."

Exactly.

The Republican spin is (and will continue to be) that opponents of the president's spying program are soft on terrorism and weak on national security, if not downright unpatriotic. In yesterday's Washington Post, E.J. Dionne examined what he called "Rove's early warning" -- that is, Karl Rove's personal preview of what Republicans have in store for Democrats going into this fall's mid-term elections. America needs presidential and Congressional leadership that understands "the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment". In Rove's view, "many Democrats" simply don't understand.

The problem, Dionne suggests, is that "the same approach keeps working" even though Democrats know what awaits them and therefore should be prepared to respond effectively. And I agree: Democrats need to engage Republican on the issue of national security, not cede the issue to the Republicans while attempting to win on seemingly more palatable domestic issues like health care and education.

And Dionne asks the right questions, the questions Democrats ought to ask of the president and his Congressional allies: "Are we really safer now than we were five years ago? Has the Iraq war, as organized and prosecuted by the administration, made us stronger or weaker? Do we feel more secure knowing the heck of a job our government did during Hurricane Katrina? Do we have any confidence that the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies will clean up their act if Washington remains under the sway of one-party government?"

Rove's Republicans will claim that Democrats don't have what it takes to safeguard America in a post-9/11 world. Democrats should welcome this challenge, stand firm, and articulate their own strengths, their own national security policies for a post-9/11 world. They should point to the president's dismal record on national security (including the debacle in Iraq and the ongoing homeland security weaknesses outlined by the 9/11 Commission). And they should point to his reprehensible violations of human and civil rights (including torture and domestic spying).

If Republicans want to run on Bush's (and their own) record, so be it.

Democrats aren't weak on national security and they needn't appear to be. They can fight spin with truth. Like Senator Clinton, they can reaffirm their commitment to tracking down terrorists... in a lawful way.