Demagogue

The GOP's best election-year message is fairly clear -- play up the fact that America has not been attacked at 9/11 and portray Republicans as the party that keeps us safe. Will Democrats watch the GOP roll out this message or will they pre-empt it by attacking Republicans' commitment to protecting the homeland?

There are very good arguments that Dems can make that show the GOP's budget priorities give short shrift to anti-terror efforts. Earlier this week, the N.Y. Times' Paul Krugman wrote a good script for Dems:

... the administration has always pinched pennies when it comes to actually defending America against terrorist attacks.

Now we learn that terrorism experts have known about the threat of liquid explosives for years, but that the Bush administration did nothing about that threat until now, and tried to divert funds from programs that might have helped protect us.

"As the British terror plot was unfolding," reports The Associated Press, "the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology."