Political points first, principles last.

Here’s Peter Beinart in the WashPost with “Pander and Run”:

Then, in June, the media reported that the Iraqi government was considering an amnesty for insurgents, perhaps including insurgents who had killed U.S. troops. Obviously the prospect was hard for Americans to stomach. But the larger context was equally obvious: Unless Maliki's government gave local Sunni insurgents an incentive to lay down their arms and break with al-Qaeda-style jihadists, Iraq's violence would never end. Democrats, however, rather than giving Maliki the freedom to carry out his extremely difficult and enormously important negotiations, made amnesty an issue in every congressional race they could, thus tying the prime minister's hands. Once again, Democrats congratulated themselves for having gotten to President Bush's right, unperturbed by the fact that they may have undermined the chances for Iraqi peace in the process.

Privately, some Democrats, while admitting that they haven't exactly been taking the high road, say they have no choice, that in a competition with Karl Rove, nice guys finish last. But even politically, that's probably wrong. The Democratic Party's single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party's behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have rolled out their “Six in ‘06” agenda, a plan for governance so thin as to be practically ethereal. For example, the plan for “retirement security”? Stop privatization of Social Security. Nevermind the program’s mathematical insolvency. Energy independence? “Stop subsidies to oil companies.” Right.

To paraphrase John Lennon: whatever gets you through the midterms.