So, your opponent accuses you of being soft on defense, that you have a cut and run strategy in Iraq and that you are undermining the war effort and what do you do? You prove them right:

Under assault from Republicans on issues of national security, congressional Democrats are planning to push for a vote of no confidence in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this month as part of a broad effort to stay on the offensive ahead of the November midterm elections.

In Rumsfeld, Democrats believe they have found both a useful antagonist and a stand-in for President Bush and what they see as his blunders in Iraq. This week, Democrats interpreted a speech of his as equating critics of the war in Iraq to appeasers of Adolf Hitler, an interpretation that Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff disputed. But Democrats said the hyperbolic attack would backfire.
[…]
Senate Democrats are considering a similar move. Next week, Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) will offer a sense-of-the-Senate resolution demanding Rumsfeld’s resignation.

And it’s smart of the Republicans to deliberately hit them with it in the fall:

By demanding accountability, Democrats hope to blunt what has been an all-out assault on their positions on national security. The Republican National Committee yesterday blasted Democrats again as “Defeatocrats,” and the attacks will continue when Congress returns next week from its month-long recess. Republican leaders plan to consider a full slate of security-related legislation before leaving on Sept. 29 for the campaigns.
[…]
A bill to clarify the legality of the NSA’s wiretapping without court warrants will also force Democrats to choose between a liberal base that believes the program is an unconstitutional breach of civil rights and a majority of Americans who back the effort.

The legislative calendars in the House and Senate include defense spending bills, the annual defense policy bill, legislation to authorize the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program and a measure to bring Bush’s military tribunals into compliance with a Supreme Court ruling that declared the initial tribunals unconstitutional.

“Now is not the time for a weak and indecisive approach that has been offered by Capitol Hill Democrats, and that’s why Republicans are working to keep America safe through policies based on strength and purpose, rather than confusion and defeat,” House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said yesterday, as he laid out the final legislative push before the campaigns.

Rather than change the subject to domestic issues, as they have tried in past years, Democrats are hoping to confront Republicans head-on.

The Democrats can play politics with this issue all they want but in the end we all know that they don’t have a plan for the war against Islamic fascists, they can only criticize.