My issue is the following:
Over the ensuing weeks, I've heard a number of talkshow pundits, celebloggers, and editorialists making the claim that, on port security, the democrats have actually taken a position RIGHT of the president and the GOP. Why is this bad?
National security has no defined coordinates on the political spectrum. By repeating the mantra that democrats, in essence, have moved to the right on the matter of port security, it serves to reinforce this idea that being on the right politically equates to being strong on national security.
Indeed, democrats have always been stronger on this issue. Kerry and Edwards made it an issue in the 2004 campaign. Howard Dean also campaigned on that platform of port security. The problem we are faced with today is that much of the public, with help from the MSM, have had a hard time disassociating security from brute force. We have burned into the public's eye the idea that it is better to go in with gun's blazing - to produce "shock and awe".
The democrats have long been chastised for being wimps and sissies who couldn't defend a nation if their entitlement programs depended on it. It is said that democrats too often investigate an issue to death, they seek too many answers, they spend too much time micro-managing plans and actions, they pay too much attention to facts, they're too attentive to global conventions and national laws. In short, they're obsolete in today's 'shoot first and ask questions later' climate.
Now, when a group of legislators want to investigate the terms of a port deal involving a nation with past ties to terrorism, when they want the review process to be as complete and profound as the law allows, they are suddenly to the RIGHT of the GOP and Bush?
Exactly!
I'm just saying....