Attention all Doughface Dems:
If you are afraid of dealing with Republicans who are continually criticizing President Obama for transferring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to the US for trial then you need to grow a pair.
See if you can follow me here: Distancing yourself from your party leader will not help you to win elections. Your opponent can always distance himself farther and far more convincingly. If you enable GOP attacks, you are not going to improve your standing, but you will make it easier for them to attack other Dems and the President.
Instead of basing your response on bone-headed political miscalculations you should try using principles instead. If that's too much to ask then how about wise political calculation. Your response should be simple. It should be direct and it should allow no room for wiggling. Most of all it should not be defensive. In short, your response should be as follows:
Well, I believe in America. My opponent has a different idea.
Why is this so difficult for you to understand? Voters respect conviction. Voters want to think of themselves as patriotic. Give them a chance to stand up for American values by standing up for them yourselves and you will get support. How do you frame the issue that way? It's fairly straightforward. Your long version response should be something like this:
I believe in America. My opponent seems to have a different idea. You see, over two centuries ago our forefathers had a dream, some ridiculed it as impractical, but they were determined to run their noble experiment, to put to the test their deeply held conviction that kings and potentates, that governments of men were not the only way for people to organize their affairs. As Thomas Paine put the matter: "in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other." For more than two hundred years every successive generation has been tried in their commitment to that idea, the idea that people could so order their affairs as to govern themselves with laws of their own devising and that these laws would be applicable to high and low alike. For more than two hundred years every successive generation has met that charge and handed unblemished the sacred charge of their forefathers to the next generation. They stubbornly stuck to their idea through foreign invasion, through a cataclysmic civil war, through not one but two world wars, through challenges by totalitarian ideologies and through internal division during time of war. In every case, in every challenge we have faced there were voices of timid and fearful men who urged us to set aside our charge, to abandon our sacred duty and heed the siren's song of summary justice. Some, to be sure, have faltered in their dedication. There are many times in the past that Americans have given into temptation and taken the easy road, but at the end of the day, cooler heads and the better angels of our nature have always prevailed. And we have remained the last best hope for mankind for exactly one reason: In America, the law is king.
Now we find ourselves faced with our own challenge, a formidable challenge to be sure, but nothing so grave as that faced even by our own parents and grandparents, and yet we have reacted to our challenge with disgraceful cowardice. For nearly eight years we embraced lawlessness and set aside the sacred duty bequeathed to us by our founders. President Obama has now reminded us of our duty. My opponent urges us to ignore that duty. He says that terrorism is a greater threat than Communism, Nazism, or even armed insurrection. He attempts to convince us that we are excused for failing in our mission when every generation of our ancestors has succeeded. He tells us that we should take counsel of our fears and abandon our principles for the sake of an illusory security. I have a different idea. I share with our forefathers the idea that people who would be free must first be brave, that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. I believe that it is our duty to pay that price just as every generation before us has paid that price. I do not believe that discretion is the better part of valor. I believe that our most sacred duty is to be able to look to our children with justifiable pride in our expressions and tell them that, just as it has been for two hundred years, so is it today: in America the law is king. I believe in America. My opponent has a different idea. That's just a genuine difference of opinion between us.
Stand for something and fight for it. You would be surprised how effective it can be.