Interesting thoughts from James Traub in the NYT Magazine today about how the Democrats might set about recapturing the moral high ground on national security, and what obstacles face them, particularly if Howard Dean is the nominee.

Revealing, but I thought maybe a little unfair to quote an exchange with Dean ("When I pointed out to Dean that he was depending heavily on continued failure in Iraq, he said, 'I'm not betting on it, and I'm hoping against it, but there's no indication that I should be expecting anything else.'" ) that took place while - unknown to the candidate - Saddam had just been taken into custody.

Interesting too, what Zbigniew Brzezinski had to say about the relationship between power and moral authority.

As my friend John says, in another world, this would be a joke....