Putting toothpaste back in the tube?

Peter Beinart, as far as I can see, is more glib than intelligent. He was the first commentator I remember who deployed the specious claim that Bush lied to lead us into war in Iraq. Now he's advocating the view that only liberals can defeat terrorism and that Democrats need to revive the spirit of FDR and HST. Today's Democrats would never nominate Harry Truman. Truman was too much of a patriot.

John Leo points out some holes in Beinart's scenario. The basic problem is that the Democrat Party is now firmly in the control of the same kind of people as those who nominated George McGovern in 1972. They are knee-jerk anti-war, any war. And they're not interested returning to the Truman model, as the current attempt to replace Joe Lieberman shows. The campaign of James Webb for the House of Representatives is an attempt to revive the Jacksonian thread in the Democrats. It might work in Virginia, but I doubt it. I admire Webb, having read his book, Born Fighting, but I think that if Jackson were alive today, he'd be a Republican. There may be some of the old plutocrat Republicans around, but I'm not one and I don't think that they are the base of the party anymore. It's the Jacksonians who are upset with Congress today and threatening the Republican's hold on power.