PPI: How Democrats Can Continue to Bridge "The Security Gap"

[madfloridian]

Notice the reference to how the Democrats "fortunately" condemned MoveOn....apparently a first step in being strong.

To their credit, most Democrats swiftly condemned MoveOn's scurrilous attempts to vilify Gen. David Petraeus, even as they kept the pressure on President Bush to change course in Iraq. Unfortunately, however, changing old stereotypes has been made more difficult of late by misguided rhetoric from some Democratic congressional leaders and presidential candidates on issues that are central to the perception of the party's seriousness on defense and security matters. It would be a shame if, having done so much to shore up their credentials for national-security leadership, Democrats start backsliding in the heat of a national election.

How Democrats Can Continue to Bridge "The Security Gap"

More from the article:

For three decades, Democrats have labored under suspicion of being "soft on defense." As a career army officer and former West Point superintendent, I can attest to how deeply ingrained such perceptions have been within the military itself. In a 2005 article for Blueprint magazine, I addressed how Democrats can begin to close the "Security Gap," for example, by challenging senseless bans on ROTC at top-tier college campuses. Thankfully, old perceptions are beginning to change -- helped in part, of course, by the Bush administration's mismanagement of our Iraq venture and by its antagonism toward key strategic allies. More importantly, however, centrist Democrats in recent years have stepped forward with timely and sensible ideas for making America safer. They have issued detailed plans for rebuilding our armed forces and focusing them on unconventional warfare, overhauling our intelligence agencies, and using all the tools of American power to win the war of ideas against Islamist extremism.

That terror battle again...it will never end.

Democrats ought to listen to Yogi, he says.

I have admired for years what Democratic leaders, often spurred by the Democratic Leadership Council and Progressive Policy Institute, have done to reverse perceptions of the party on security issues. In the enormously challenging post-9/11 international security environment, they have provided clear-headed, forward-looking strategic analysis and leadership. The party now has a choice: It can affirm this renewed image of national-security competence, or it can undermine it. As the examples above highlight, the danger of backsliding is real. Yogi Berra allegedly was quoted as saying that, in losing a key baseball series, "my team made too many of the wrong mistakes." Rather than reinforce old stereotypes on national security and foreign policy, Democrats ought to listen to Yogi.

I fear we will be soon be permitting Bush to attack Iran so we will look strong on National Security.

[madrchsod]

1. He is currently the senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

that pretty much sums this article up for me. more neo liberal "father knows best" while mom is screwing the milkman

[madfloridian]

4. And speaks of Democrats in the third person.

As though he is not one.

[eridani]

2. Will somebody please tell me what in fecking hell--

--our military has to be "strong" enough to do?

[madfloridian]

3. "scurrying to follow the party's base, not trying to lead it on trade"

The author, vp of the Chamber of Commerce, is very critical of Democrats who want to regulate trade deals because the "base" wants them to do so.

"Scuttling the trade agreement, on the other hand, would be a gift to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, and Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Uribe's populist and increasingly anti-American Andean neighbors. As Washington Post columnist David Ignatius argued recently, 'The Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, are scurrying to follow the party's base, not trying to lead it on trade. Democrats want to turn a page, but in the case of Latin America, they may be turning it backwards."

Someone else this week mentioned that "leader" concept. Like the people who are the party's members, base, the majority who don't want free and unregulated trade......are to lead not allowed opinions.

But the author is very complimentary of Charlie Rangel.

Fortunately, Rep. Charles Rangel, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, is charting a sensible path forward for Democrats on trade policy. Rangel has worked hard to elicit the Bush administration's OK to alter labor and environmental provisions for deals already struck, beginning with the Peru and Panama accords. This approach allows Washington to keep the pressure on Bogota to curb paramilitary violence without dashing Colombia's hopes that Congress will approve the treaty.

This Charlie Rangel, who prefers to ram deals through then talk about it later.

Rangel..."bam, seal it and catch hell"

Think about it. The author speaks of Democrats in the third person, as if he were not one. He criticizes those who listen to the their base. He praises one who like to ram trade deals through quietly.

He is posting all this at a so-called Democratic think tank.