Houston Press -- Local Dems Caught Between Iraq and a Hard Place

As the first missiles struck Baghdad last Wednesday, local Democrats were quick to back the troops, but mostly silent on the larger issues posed by the first pre-emptive war in U.S. history.

Preventative, not pre-emptive, the Democrats could take lessons from the Republicans on managing talking points. Pre-emptive means we know they are going to attack and strike first, preventative means we think that in a year or more they could attack.

This is all we can do," Ryan says while admitting that it "might be tilting at windmills." "Pre-emptive war is an unworkable concept. I wish the world was as simple as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the president think it is, with 'We're the good guys and they're the bad guys.'

"If we think we are the Lone Ranger who knows what the law is and what the future holds, and we don't really care who's riding with us, that's a huge change in what I think is a very complex world."