Why Joe Biden has no chance in the Democratic Party; and why today's core of the Democratic Party cannot effectively protect American lives:

Biden says that a “small faction” of the Party is mistrustful of even the occasional use of force. “There are some really bright guys and women in my party who underestimate the transformative capability of military power, when coupled with a rational policy that is both preventative and nation-building in nature,” he said.

He told me about a recent visit to Los Angeles, where he met with a group of wealthy liberals and laid out the following scenario: “Assume you’re the President, and I’m your Secretary of Defense or State or C.I.A. director, and I come to you and tell you we know where bin Laden is, he and four hundred of his people, and they’re in this portion of Pakistan the Pakistanis won’t go into, and they told us not to go in. This is going to cost us five hundred to five thousand lives, of our soldiers, but we can get him. What do you do?” Biden said they had no answer. “The truth is, they put their heads down,” he said.

Bin Laden in return for 500 American lives? The last Democrat who had the chance wouldn't even accept the guy when handed over on a platter -- requiring loss of zero American lives.

But what's truly scary here is the intellectual dishonesty depicted. If their favored principle -- never use force, even if the tradeoff is more dead people or terrorism -- is true and good, then why not be honest about that? Are they ashamed of that value? If it's really true, then why not shout it from the mountaintops?

Because they know in their hearts it isn't.

Biden makes a number of other good points, such as that the Republicans have stolen a lot of Democratic values. That's absolutely true, and why I so enjoy the spectacle of Democrats ardently opposing them, now that they're being voiced by a Republican mouth. It shows they have no principles.

Bush, on the other hand, really believes in creating giant government programs to solve problems. It's no simulation. Even now, he can't bring himself to cut an albatross like HUD or NEArts. Likewise, I applauded Clinton's moves toward fiscal responsibility and welfare reforms. I didn't change my professed principles in order to oppose him, as so many Democratic leaders (and rank-and-file followers I know) have plainly done, on point after point after point.