Ed wrote:

Greg's right that some Democrats have habitually wanted to ignore national security issues and some habitually have objected (going all the way back to the 1970s), but this is a divide that cuts across the left-right, pro-war anti-war differences of opinion. The apotheosis of the change-the-subject approach was in the last midterm elections, those in 2002, and it was promoted and opposed by Democrats on both sides of the decision to invade Iraq (the DLC, to cite one example, ranted against the concede-national-security point of view relentlessly).

Say what Ed? The DLC argued for wholehearted embrace of the Iraq Debacle in 2002:

Our, and the world's, beef with Saddam Hussein is not primarily about his reluctance up until now to foreswear another invasion of Kuwait (which Saddam knows would be even more quickly repelled than his last one). The real issue is his continuing development of weapons of mass destruction, and his continuing refusal to accept any effective international inspections regime. Indeed, if Saddam would give up his fight against inspections, there would be no "security threat" to his despicable regime, much less thoughts of military action. . . . On these two issues -- the claimed legitimacy of terrorism and of Saddam's "right" to brew up nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in peace -- the United States must make it clear there can be no compromise. A "coalition against terrorism" that must accept terrorist acts and embrace a terrorist state is not a coalition with a very bright future.

But of course that is not even Greg's pouint, it was whether Dems should run in opposition to the President on Iraq in 2006. And it is clear that the DLC was firmly in the stand with the President camp:

Al From, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and pollster Mark Penn wrote a strategy memo to DLC supporters last week warning party leaders not to use Bush's problems as an invitation to call for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, or generally to steer a more liberal course that could alienate the middle-of-the-road voters the party needs.

"It is important for Democrats to understand that despite Bush's decline, America remains a moderate to conservative country -- particularly on economic and security measures," the two wrote. While a poll taken by Penn for the DLC showed voters opposing the Iraq war 54 to 44 percent, they warned that "Democratic leaders could be playing with political dynamite if they call for an immediate pullout of American troops."

The memo is the latest illustration of deep divisions among Democrats over the right stance on Iraq -- on policy and political grounds. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who supports a rapid withdrawal starting now, has estimated that half the Democratic caucus agrees with her.

In addition, Ed simply concedes the point further in his piece:

Within the now-triumphant don't-ignore-national-security camp among Democrats, a secondary argument has been, as Greg briefly discusses, whether to attack the Bush administration and the GOP for its incompetence on Iraq, or for its basic decision to go after Saddam Hussein. I strongly suspect a lot of voters would consider this a theoretical and backward-looking dispute that is irrelevant to the basic judgment that Bush and company lied and bullied their way into a war they didn't know how to win. And that's why Democrats were almost certainly smart to frame their party message on Iraq almost exactly that way.

And that was Greg Sargent's point. And it certainly was not the DLC view:

Marshall Wittmann, a former Republican political strategist now with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said Pelosi may have resurrected her party's most deadly liability -- voters' lack of trust in the party on national security.

"If Karl Rove was writing the timing of this, he wouldn't have written it any differently, with the president of the United States expressing resolve and the Democratic leader offering surrender," Wittmann said, referring to Bush's top adviser. "For Republicans, this is manna from heaven."

David Sirota, a Democratic strategist in Montana long critical of the party leadership's timidity, fired back: "It is not surprising that a bunch of insulated elitists in the Washington establishment -- most of whom have never served in uniform -- would stab the Democratic Party in the back and attack the courage of people like Vietnam War hero Jack Murtha and Nancy Pelosi for their stand on Iraq."

Ed would do better, as would the entire DLC, to concede the mistake and move on.