Sharpening their election-year message, leading Democrats on Wednesday released a plan that promised to strengthen America's security but offered few details about how they would achieve their sweeping goals. ...

Though Democrats were spirited in their denunciations of Bush's record on national security, they offered limited insights into the actual policies they would pursue if returned to power.

The party document said Democrats would double the size of the military's special forces, pass legislation improving veterans' medical care and press to screen all cargo bound for the United States "in ships or airplanes at the point of origin."

On many other fronts, though, the Democratic plan emphasized aspiration over direction.

For instance, party leaders said they would make "the needed investments in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary." But aides said the proposal did not commit Democrats to any specific increase in defense spending.

Along with its vow to eliminate Bin Laden, the plan said Democrats would "destroy terrorist networks like Al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan and end the threat posed by the Taliban." But other than adding more special forces and improving America's intelligence capacity, the document offered no hints of what strategies the party might employ toward those ends.

Captain Ed goes on to say that Brownstein's comments fail to characterize the Dem's plan for what it is, a collection of slogans and mission statements with almost no specifics about legislation, financing, strategies, tactics, or military efforts to achieve them.

Even on those topics where their report gets specific, it fails to address the consequences of the action involved. For instance, on its insistence that the Democrats would eliminate Osama through greater numbers of special forces (doubling them), it does not say how or where they will find the men to fill those slots or the funding necessary for the expansion. It does not address how exactly they will manage to invade Pakistan against the will of our precariously-seated ally Pervez Musharraf without touching off another war.

The most humorous moment comes when the Democrats accuse George Bush of "subcontracting" the Iranian nuclear talks to the British, French, and Germans. After listening to their complaints over the last four years about Bush's supposed "unilateral" approach to foreign affairs -- while he garnered the support of dozens of nations for the invasion of Iraq, including troops from 15 other countries -- having them screech about allowing the three European nations that appear to be at the highest risk of a nuclear-tipped Shahab-3 rocket only solidifies the hyperpartisan nature of their approach. The Democrats have no consistency on national security, no credibility, and this passage is a perfect example of why. Instead of actually developing a comprehensive, consistent, and thorough strategy for foreign policy, they've reduced themselves to nothing more than gainsaying whatever the GOP does and hope that the voters don't notice the difference.

In the days ahead we'll see and hear much more on this, and it's actually a good thing that the Dems are at least trying to look stronger on national defense, even though they have in fact done everything possible to weaken our national defense and the War on Terror - serving in opposition to every important step the administration has pursued.

For a full dissection of the Dems plan, with commentary, be sure to check out Jim Geraghty at TCS (hat tip - CQ).

I particularly liked Geraghty's description of Iran's president as ""Iranian President Mahmoud "I'm surrounded by a mystical green aura, world leaders magically don't blink for hours at a time when I'm speaking, and the Twelfth Imam/Mahdi is coming and I have to prepare the way for him" Ahmedinjad.""