Don’t bother them, they’re hunting Cheney

From Roll Call, here’s “On terrorist wiretaps, Democrats’ position is absurd and untenable.” Well, as titles go, it doesn’t get any more straightforward than that:

Most Capitol Hill Democrats seem to have adopted what amounts to the inverse of a Biblical approach to the problem: Love the sin but hate the sinner. They are desperately trying to straddle the national security fence, telling everyone who will listen that they now are enthusiastic supporters of the program. It is the real and growing threat to America’s civil liberties posed by President Bush that’s got them worried.

In reality, their conundrum, whether on the NSA anti-terrorism program, the USA PATRIOT Act or the war itself, reflects a party in disarray in two disturbing ways. First, Democrats simply have been unable to come to terms with what they believe, deep down, as a party about national security. They have no ideas, no alternatives, so they try to pass off criticism as content.

Democrats are in a box because, deep down, they are just not serious about terrorism. But many Americans rank national security as the most critical issue, so they have to fake it, depending on how the political winds blow.