Centerfield

Synchronicity

I have an annoying tendency to blog on a certain topic or theme and to really hammer on that theme repeatedly over a period of days or weeks.

It's an approach unbecoming a centrist. You expect that sort of thing from the more passionate ideologues on either side of the aisle, but not from us cool, even-tempered moderates.

Here's the curious thing. A few weeks ago my "topic of choice" was the need for a positive agenda. I talked about the difference between a reactive approach based on anger and a positive, forward-looking approach that offers vision first, and then uses that vision as a basis for contrast with your opponent.

In the next Democratic debate, a certain candidate picked up on this theme in a very specific way. He was great, too -- passionate, compelling, remarkably sharp and articulate. He brought up the topic deliberately, but managed to make it sound natural -- like he just had something he wanted to get off his chest.

Fast forward a couple weeks. I get on my soap box about the odd approach the Democrats are taking to national security. Listening to these guys, you'd think that September 11 only happened as a kind of backdrop to Bush screwing up our country. There's little discussion of the real security issues surrounding the war on terror -- few specific ideas on how to fight these shadowy figures who really are out there plotting to blow things up.

The obvious thing -- really obvious -- is to propose a forceful agenda for combating Al Qaida, and, again, to criticize the president in terms of his failure to do the things you're proposing.

So I'm watching the debate last night. And a certain candidate deliberately, but gracefully, segues into the above topic. Here's what he said:

Well, first of all, I agree with a lot of what's been said about our responsibility to internationalize this effort to get the U.N. involved in the transition period, to make sure that the security force is, in fact, an international security force, and, when that's done, to create a meaningful timeline for putting the Iraqi people in charge of their own governance.

But I want to say something about a subject that Dick Gephardt brought up just a few minutes ago. The whole issue of the war on terrorism and what needs to be done to keep the American people safe, see, this president is claiming he's taking the steps necessary to keep America safe. In fact, he's not.

A lot of the criticisms about his foreign policy have already been voiced. I embrace those. I think they're right.

It is impossible -- I was involved in investigating September 11th, why it happened, how we keep it from happening again. The reality is we will never stamp out these terrorist groups and terrorist cells that exist all over the world, in countries all over the world, unless we have a positive working relationship with those countries.

But in addition to that, there is so much that needs to be done here to keep the American people safe that's not being done. We have nuclear plants, chemical plants all over this country that are extraordinarily vulnerable. The president is not doing the things that need to be done.

This is just another example of special interests. The administration recognized there were over 100 chemical plants in America, any one of which if they were attacked could cost a million or more lives. So they wanted to do something about it. We were urging something be done. The chemical industry pushed back and as a result nothing was done. The chemical industry lobbyists pushed back.

The same thing's true with trying to protect our ports. Right here in New Hampshire that danger exists. There are thousands and thousands of containers coming through our ports every single day. And we look at 3, 4, 5 percent of them on a good day.

The reason is we don't have the people and we don't have the technology to do the job.

And I also want to say something about -- that's all defense. The question is, what are we going to do offensively about the terrorist cells that everyone on this stage knows exist all over America today, tonight, right now? I'm not talking about something that might happen. It's happening right now.

If we don't aggressively go after those cells, which in my judgment means taking that responsibility away from the FBI, giving it -- because we know that they're structurally incapable of doing it because of what we've seen happen in the past, the failures that existed before September 11th. They're a law enforcement agency. They're not in the business of fighting terrorism, and we've seen the problems that exist as a result.

And what we need to do is we need to go after these terrorist cells and have human penetration of them.

So if we want to take the steps that actually need to be taken to keep the American people safe, the steps that are not being taken by this president, we need a president who understands what needs to be done and has a clear plan for doing it.

My question is this. Does John Edwards read our blog?

Secondarily, and more seriously, is he perhaps evolving into a great candidate?