As always it is important for D's not to misconceive the important issues in elections. Our party has a knack for gnashing its teeth about the failure of the other side to be "rational," when elections are about trust and character, and policy is only the language of these virtues in political discourse.

The Iran debate, if you can call it a debate, brings this time-honored Democratic Party way to drop the ball on the goal line into contemplation once again.

We need to be stating home truths, and ethical stances. After all, complicated thinking is necessary for designing a microprocessor or a search engine, but it is not by any means a guarantee of the right answer in world affairs. And even very subtle thinking, a la Kissinger or Nixon, is hardly a guarantee of virtue or even common sense. Nor does proof of elite education count for much; we see in the Iraq embroglio that Harvard, Stanford and Yale degrees don't assure practical or even consistent judgment, much less execution.

So let's try the simple approach for Democrats speaking

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