One thing I’ve seldom heard anyone say in the past five years is that the Bush administration was doing a gangbuster job on terrorism prior to 9/11. Even the most partisan Bush supporters, and I consider myself such a creature, have to admit that 9/11 wouldn’t have occurred were it not for a breakdown of government on a colossal level.

Of course, we Bush partisans bristle, and rightly so, when anyone tries to suggest that America’s counter-terrorism efforts were chugging along rather nicely until Bush assumed the presidency seven months prior to 9/11. As I said yesterday, no serious study has concluded that the Clinton administration fought terror in either a resolute or effective fashion. In short, there is plenty of blame to go around.

I’ve been somewhat surprised by the far left’s vehement anger directed at “The Path to 9/11” because the film is uncomplimentary to the Clinton administration. For students of the angry left, its minions' ringing defense of the Clintonistas and their attempts to kill the miniseries seem odd. The Daily Kos hates the DLC; the Clinton Administration was the DLC’s baby. Few ardent liberals admire Clinton or his policies. They view his tenure, from “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to welfare reform to midnight pardons, as a series of betrayals.

So, it’s fair to ask, what gives? Why is everyone on the left suddenly rallying around Bubba?

THE ANSWER CAN BE FOUND in a critical difference between the two parties and the schools of thought that they currently represent. Republicans don’t view the pre-9/11 Bush administration counter-terrorism efforts as a ringing success. Frankly, you’d have to be a fool to do so. If you think they were, I would suggest a weekend excursion to downtown Manhattan where you’ll easily find evidence to the contrary.

It was inarguably Bush’s Transportation Department that allowed four or five young Arab men to board first class cabins together while in possession of box cutters. They allowed this to happen on four different planes on 9/11. And they were following their policies.

But they were continuing policies that had been followed in the Clinton Administration.

After 9/11, the Bush Administration changed. Immediately. Beginning on the day of the attacks, Bush announced a bold new principle saying that the United States would not distinguish between terrorists and the regimes that gave them safe harbor. This meant the Taliban’s days in power were numbered.

From Afghanistan to Iraq to CIA detention cells to Gitmo, the administration has waged an active and aggressive war against Radical Islam. Many of the administration’s actions have been unpopular. Some have left elements of our own population gobsmacked and crippled with heartache. But the following is undeniable: The post-9/11 Bush Administration is an entirely different entity than its pre-9/11 incarnation.

THE SAME CANNOT BE SAID of the Democrats or the left in general. In the past five years, the left has vigorously protested aspects of the war with Radical Islam that have not been to its liking. From Abu Ghraib to water-boarding to Iraq to the way Donald Rumsfeld parts his hair, the left has been lamentably outspoken in expressing its unhappiness about what it considers to be the administration’s shortcomings.

But the left has introduced no ideas of its own on how to fight this war. The Democratic candidate for Senator in Pennsylvania said on Sunday that his “plan” is to double the amount of Special Forces troops (as if doing so could be done with just the wave of a Senator’s wand). But he declines to identify precisely what those newly minted Special Forces will actually do. Probably because he himself doesn’t know.

In 2004, John Kerry ran for President without offering any specific areas where he differed from the current administration. He would stay the course in Iraq he said, but promised to conduct a “more sensitive war on terror,” whatever that meant. In the not too distant past, Howard Dean disowned his party's responsibility to actually outline policies, saying doing so was the exclusive province of the party in power.

It came as no small matter of symbolism that while President Bush was giving a major address yesterday outlining concrete things his administration was doing and would do to safeguard the country, the Democratic caucus in the Senate was having a highly organized hissy-fit just to demonstrate how much they disliked Donald Rumsfeld. Again, it’s the same old tune. Bush is doing things and proposing other things to do; the Democrats just complain.

The sad fact is, from the Clinton Administration to the present day, the Democratic Party has been intellectually bankrupt when it comes to fighting terror. Strangled by their peace-at-any-price caucus and their overarching concern for political correctness, they haven’t come up with a single idea in a decade of how to fight this war.

AND THAT’S WHY THE “PATH TO 9/11” rubs salt in an old wound for them. Even though the current Democratic Party has long since parted ways with Bill Clinton philosophically in most areas of significance (e.g. free trade), when it comes to terrorism the continuum between the Clinton Administration and his Democrat descendants remains clear and intact.

For ten years, the Democrats’ policy has been to treat terrorism as a law enforcement matter – wait until a terrorist crime occurs, and then hunt down the terrorist criminals responsible for the act. This model sort of worked with the 1993 WTC bombing; the terrorists killed a few people, and were then brought to justice like any common killer would have been. The fact that their criminal enterprise attempted to kill 100,000 people and nearly succeeded didn’t dent the Democrats’ worldview.

But 9/11 changed everone else’s world view. It became apparent to most of America that we had to kill the would-be criminals before they actually became criminals. To most Americans, this was disquieting but a common sense necessity.

But the left never escaped its previous mindset. Liberals remain exactly where they were 10 years ago; desirous of a policy that waits for a terrorist act and then lets law enforcement mop up the aftermath.

The fact that people are talking about the Democrats’ attitude towards terrorism is horrifically damaging to the Democratic Party. There is, however, a way out for the Democrats. Truly, it would be best for the country and their party if they could arrive at a clearly articulated policy about what they would like to do, rather than simply loudly express primal emotions about how much they detest their domestic political opposition.

Alas, that’s all they have. And this controversy brings their intellectually bankrupt status into the open.

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