The Democrats, and their liberal media allies, have failed to face up to the fact that their razor thin margins of Congressional control do not translate into a mandate on National Security, and in fact they are still considered woefully lacking by the American people in this key area. By example, take the recent drubbing they took on the NSA-FISA issue and their naive reactions to the idea we are a nation at war and threatened by bloody terrorists who would happily die killing as many Americans as they could conceivably take with them. To get a window into the misunderstanding of the left in this country we need go no further than E.J. Dionne’s humorous piece out today about the Democrat capitulation on NSA-FISA:

Shortly before noon last Saturday, about 20 House Democrats huddled in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to decide what to do about a surveillance bill that had been dumped on them by the Senate before it left town.

Many of the Democrats were furious. They believed they had negotiated in good faith with Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. They sought to give the Bush administration the authority it needed to intercept communications involving foreign nationals in terrorism investigations while preserving some oversight.

But the administration held out for granting McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales more power while seriously circumscribing the role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The Senate’s Democratic leadership, lacking the votes to pass a measure more to the House’s liking, gave the administration what it wanted.

Emphasis mine. The fact is the Senate is not going to risk American lives to a terrorist attack because Democrats have been obsessed with protecting the rights of people in this country who may be out to kill us. This basic reality is passed right by in Dionne’s tirade which is nothing more than frustration at the fact we are under threat – though he goes to great links to point fingers everywhere else than face the reality of the situation:

Even some very liberal Democrats worried about the political costs of blocking action before the summer recess. That Saturday night, the House sent the president a bill that, as a disgusted Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) put it, with just a touch of exaggeration, “makes Alberto Gonzalez the sheriff, the judge and the jury.”

Most Democrats opposed the bill, but 41 (including Shuler) voted yes, allowing it to pass.

Again, a sideways recognition that even in the house there was no mandate to lower our defenses. But the issue driving them crazy was “Bush-Gonzales won”. Gonzales IS the top cop for the nation. AND he decides where our resources need to be focused AND he needs to work with our intelligence assets to detect dangers to this nation. The fact these people were upset the administration won out is because the reality is we cannot let our guard down and let overwhelm trump National Security to the point we let an attack get through. Everything in life is a balance, not a one-size-fits-all-situations reality. The NSA-FISA laws focus on known or highly suspected terrorists overseas and who they contact here in America. It is NOT a blind broom sweeping up everything in its sites. But the Democrats, stuck in the BDS mindset, keep pretending security is not the driver, but that Bush and Co. are using this reality to frustrate their partisan dreams:

The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage.

Again, it was not intimidation or fear that forced Democrats to surrender. It was the reality of the threats to this nation that forced them to do the right thing, grudgingly. They were more focused on losing a battle with Bush than protecting this country. The fact these two things even came close in priority in their minds is a testament to why Americans do not trust Democrats to do the right thing on National Security. They spent a day discussing ways they could risk our lives to win some PR in the media. Those are wrong and dangerous priorties to be balancing. This is a no brainer, unless you brain is obsessed with PR instead of security. Did they feel they did the right thing to protect us or did they feel they lost a PR battle. They can speak to that themselves:

Democrats concede they made an enormous tactical blunder by not dealing with the issue earlier, forcing the question to the fore in the days before the recess. One anxiety hovered over the debate: If a terrorist attack happened and Congress had not given Bush what he wanted, the Democrats would get blamed for a lack of vigilance.

“Could something happen over August?” Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) asked in an interview. “Sure it could. What bothered me is that too many Democrats allowed that fear to turn into a demand for some atrocious legislation.”

See the treason here? These people let the threat of attack outweigh their dreams of beating Bush. Pathetic. These people KNOW they do not have a mandate to use our national security for their personal political wetdreams:

The saga also underscored how constrained congressional Democrats feel because of their tenuous majority in the Senate. Had the Senate sent the House an alternative bill, sponsored by Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the two houses could have put a more limited proposal on the president’s desk and challenged him to veto it. But the Levin-Rockefeller proposal failed.

Got that? If only our fantasies were reality and we have more Senators we could have done what we wanted! But those fantasies are just that – fantasies. The fact is this nation did not, and probably will not given these kinds of rationalizations, give the Democrats any mandates regarding security. And the sooner they realize it the less frustrated they will be – because that is the reality. Not this fiction Dionne is offering up.