National Security: Who Needs It?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012301261.html
The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne yesterday offered some advice for Democrats:

By not engaging the national security debate, Democrats cede to [Karl] Rove the power to frame it. Consider that clever line about Democrats having a pre-Sept. 11 view of the world. The typical Democratic response would be defensive: "No, no, of course 9/11 changed the world." More specifically, there's a lot of private talk among Democrats that the party should let go of the issue of warrantless spying on Americans because the polls show that a majority values security and safety.
What Democrats should have learned is that they cannot evade the security debate. They must challenge the terms under which Rove and [President] Bush would conduct it. Imagine, for example, directly taking on that line about Sept. 11. Does having a "post-9/11 worldview" mean allowing Bush to do absolutely anything he wants, any time he wants, without having to answer to the courts, Congress or the public? Most Americans--including a lot of libertarian-leaning Republicans--reject such an anti-constitutional view of presidential power. If Democrats aren't willing to take on this issue, what's the point of being an opposition party?

So Dionne's advice to the Democrats seems to consist of (1) refusing to acknowledge that "9/11 changed the world," (2) defending vigorously the "civil liberties" of terrorists, and (3) setting up and attacking a straw man, the notion that President Bush is asserting the authority "to do absolutely anything he wants, any time he wants."
Dionne is right that for the most part the Democrats have not done (1), at least paying lip service to the significance of 9/11. But (2) and (3) are exactly what the Democrats are doing, and, as today's Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-civil25jan25,0,1576651.story notes, it doesn't seem to be a political winner:

These exchanges establish contrasts familiar from debates over law enforcement and national security throughout the 1970s and '80s, with most Republicans arguing for tough measures and many Democrats focusing on the defense of constitutional protections.
That emerging alignment worries some Democratic strategists, who believe it may allow Bush to portray Republicans as stronger than Democrats in fighting terrorism, as he did in the 2002 and 2004 campaigns.
"If Democrats want to be the party of people who think [the government] is too tough and the Republicans are the party of people who are tough, I don't see how that helps us," said one senior Democratic strategist who asked not to be identified while discussing party strategy.

The dilemma for Democrats is that although Angry Left paranoiacs and civil-liberties fetishists constitute a big chunk of the party base, there aren't nearly enough of them to make up a majority of the country.