The progressive anti-war Democratic Party needs to be trusted on National Security.
The Lamont victory needs to be coded as something more than anti-war. In the post 9/11-GWOT-Occupied-Iraq-world National Security is everything, or at least a major trump card in electoral politics. Even with surging anti-war sentiment in the country being trusted on national security is key to victory.
There is a need for a new frame around the issue of National Security. Let's frame National Secruity as defending the NATION.
The public, with considerable help their friends in the right-wing media, have come to the TRUE and PROPER conclusion that Democrats can not be trusted with National Security, that is of course WHEN National Security is equated with Imperial Security.
When it comes to defending the empire Democrats have and will continue to be untrustworthy, to be wafflers, to be wimps. Why? Because we do not want to defend our imperial aggressions overseas. We do not want bases in Iraq. We do not want to remake the Middle East in our image. We do not feel the need to threaten Latin American nations when they get sassy.
When imperial ambition is confused with national security it is easy to confuse Democratic ambiguity and reluctantness with weakness. If we continue to allow National Security to be equated with imperial power projection it will continue to be easy to as present us as waffles. Progressives will waffle on the merits of bases in Uzbekistan and El Salvador. We can stand strong and united on the defense of the REPUBLIC.
We are strong on national defense when nation means nation.
Luckily National Security has a nice little key word in it: national. Everybody wants the nation protected. Progressives who want to drawback the empire a bit will have a damn bit easier job of actually defending the COUNTRY than Republicans who want to defend/capture/police half the world. Democrats need to come clean on empire---we don't need it.
And this is not just some pansy-assed idea. Especially since right now the defense of the country is going to depend on soft power much more than hard power. If we pull back a bit from empire we will generate a hell of a lot more soft power, right when BUSH has lost us virtually ALL the soft power the country ever had. And right when Iraq and Lebanon is generating a new generation of al Qaeda recruits.
In sum, we need to reframe national security as defending `the flag and the Republic for which it stands' i.e. an anti-imperial nation of the people, for the people and by the people. Let Republicans try and make a case for empire while we stand with Washington and Jefferson defending the REPUBLIC, the ground it stands on and the people that live and work in it.
P.S. Let's get something damn straight, the wacko right is just gonna present this as isolationism. They say the soldiers fight over there for our freedom here. They really must be a bunch of chicken-hawk chicken-shits if they really think al Qaeda is gonna take over America. We're gonna loose our Freedom? Huh? I guess with drunk drug-snorting deferring deserting draft-dodgers in charge it would be right to fear that if Bin Laden et al motor-boated into Boston Harbor the chickenhawks would cut and run.
But when something important was on the line, Roosevelt (D) ordered my Dad and all my Uncles to defend it. They fought and defended the Republic not the empire. My Uncle Jim was shot down over Germany, my Uncle Paul drove a tank with Patton into the Battle of the Bulge, my Uncle Hank swam 27 hours in the Pacific after the Japanese sunk his ship and my Dad has in a LST on his way to invade Japan when the war ended. They fought for the Republic, not no-bid contracts.
Hell my Grandpa's dog did more than the chickenhawks. The dog, Chief du Pontchartrain, was strongly encouraged to `volunteer'. Grandpa loyally sent it off to France, the Army promoted it to Sergeant and he died in charge of all the other dogs guarding a POW camp. They awarded it the Purple Heart. No Shit. The dog died for the nation not overseas bases.
National Security as defense of the nation need not be isolationism, if al Qaeda regroups in some country, I'm sure we can find enough troops to go kick their ass again and maybe actually eliminate their leaders this time and then come back home.