Kudlow Advocates Turning Homeland Security Into a Wedge Issue

At first, Lawrence Kudlow was making sense:

People on the right, like me, want to win the war, but the president is not unveiling a truly new victory plan. His own Pentagon just issued a gloomy Iraq report that chronicles near-civil-war sectarian violence and the security problems in that country. Voter opinions have already hardened on Iraq, and it is doubtful that the commander in chief is going to change any of this in the next 60 or so days. It may well be that things have improved in the Sunni Triangle in the last month, with 12,000 additional U.S. troops and something of a standoff with al Sadr and his army. But this will not resonate for the election. It is too late to make this sale. Instead, the president should be hammering away on homeland-security measures to protect against another terrorist attack.

This Administration has botched Iraq. Alas, this Administration has been doing little about homeland security except for the kind of rhetoric that follows:

This is where the Republican party has true value-added. Defense against terrorist bombings should be made into a wedge issue for this election. There will be critical votes in Congress on the Patriot Act and FISA-related issues concerning electronic surveillance … The ACLU Democrats will keep carping about chemical plants, bridges, and tunnels. And Republicans must counter with highly publicized votes on surveillance expansion. This is what stopped the terrorists in the London plot. Folks know this.

Yes, we know the UK government can do surveillance and obey the law at the same time. We Democrats are not against wiretaps – we just what FISA obeyed. But carping about protecting our chemical plants, bridges, and tunnels? It is criminal that this Administration has shortchanged protecting these assets. Yes, the National Review do wedge issues, but little else.