This from the President's local newspaper:
"By challenging Congress to immediately give the administration authority to try notorious al-Qaeda figures such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed by military commissions, he shifted the argument with Democratic critics of national security policies and competence."

Well, you read it here first. When the Supreme Court case came down I blogosputtered that the Democrats needed to introduce legislation in a hurry that established an aggressive new way to bring bad actors to trial and also that they needed to demand immediate trials. The general wave of commentary even in the mainstream media was that the Supreme Court had checked the White House's illegal activities and that the rule of law had been given a shot in the arm. I was a cynic.

So the loose group known as Democrats didn't demand trials, didn't insist on anything, and its various leaders instead began writing letters exclusively about Iraq.

The letters are good, Rumsfeld is a good topic, but politics is tennis, not baseball: you have to hit everything that comes at you, and not just wait for your favorite pitch.

This year, as always the White House will insist on Congressional votes, on the eve of the election, that are framed to make Democrats look bad. Don't, friends, wait for the votes. Start demanding legislation right away that compels the White House to take action on many terrorism-related topics. Put the other side on the defensive, not just as to firing Donald Rumsfeld but to the many other ways the White House has failed us on foreign policy. It's not the details that matter but the demands. Stop complaining that you don't control the process. It's the court of public opinion, of course, that matters now and you can say whatever you want in that forum. We need at least ten different demands, each cast in form of bill or resolution, that Democrats say Congress should pass and will if they take charge. The topics should include negotiation with Iran, catching Osama, sealing the Lebanese border with Syria, replacing the head of Homeland Security, having the Attorney General explain in a public report why his prosecution record against terrorists is so abysmal, and so forth. Think of this as a Contract with America to have the war on terrorism run right.