Richard Tofel argues that the

Richard Tofel argues that the Democrats should outflank Bush to the right on the war. He’s right; there is plenty of room to be more hawkish than the Administration. If more attacks come, no one is going to be interested in watching the President visit mosques and talk about how Islam is a “religion of peace.” But it will never happen. Many people, maybe most people, only learn one story in their lives, and forever after they interpret events, no matter how disparate, within the framework of that narrative. For the current generation of Democratic leaders, that story is Viet Nam. They will never get over it; it is the reason why they are in public life and the source of their assumed moral superiority. Daschle, Clinton, et al. would rather stop breathing than acknowledge that America is good and her enemies are evil, and the principal way the world can be improved is through the aggressive deployment of American military power. Maybe younger Democrats can get beyond the Viet Nam paradigm, but they’re not in charge.