A new kind of Democrat

As you may have heard, the Right--now thoroughly scared by the phenomenon that is Barack Obama--has been questioning his patriotism. Rather than concentrating on the scurrilous attacks, I'd like to fasten on his responses.

To accusations that he shows a lack of patriotic fervor by not putting his hand over his heart when the national anthem is played, he pointed out, "that would disqualify about three quarters of the people who have ever gone to a football or a baseball game.” To the kind of criticisms that Republicans are starting to lob over his positions on the war in Iraq and the Global War on Terror, he said that he looked forward to a debate with the representative of a party whose President failed to send enough body armor for the troops, that did not give proper care to wounded benefits and that engaged in illegal wiretapping. “We’ll see what the American people’s definition of patriotism is,” Obama said in Lorain, Ohio.

Barack Obama is not one of those Democrats who get defensive about foreign policy, national security and defense. The Republicans need a whole new playbook, and I'd bet they haven't even started to think about writing one.