The Bushies and their enablers are trying to parlay their last scraps of political credibility by insisting it's either escalation in Iraq or handing over the region to Iran and Al Qaeda, and daring Democrats to prove otherwise.

Here's Sen. John McCain on CBS' Face The Nation:

...the opponents of doing this, are obligated, in my view, to tell the American people what the option is if we do leave. What is the option? It's catastrophe.

It's catastrophe in the form of increased Iranian influence, the Saudis are going to have to support the Sunnis, the Kurds are going to have increased problems with Turkey. The list goes on and on.

And Sen. Joe Lieberman on NBC's Meet The Press:

Any alternatives that I've heard ultimately don't work. They're all about failing. They're all about withdrawing.

And I think allowing Iraq to collapse would be a disaster for the Iraqis, for the Middle East, for us, that would embolden the Iranians and al-Qaeda, who are our enemies. And they would follow us back here.

(Once again, there's no connection between Shiite Iran and Sunni Al Qaeda.)

And Dick Cheney on Fox News Sunday:

...they all agree we can't fail, the consequences of failure would be too great. But then they end up critical of what we're trying to do, advocating withdrawal or so-called redeployment of force, but they have absolutely nothing to offer in its place...

...if we were to follow their guidance ... we simply go back and revalidate the strategy that Osama bin Laden has been following from day one, that if you kill enough Americans, you can force them to quit, that we don't have the stomach for the fight.

Of course, with the hilarious-if-not-so-tragic track record of these neocons, these attacks amount to not so much of a dare as tee ball.

And Dems are showing some ability to swing.

Sen. Barack Obama, after dulling his message with some unnecessary niceties, gave the proper comeback. From Face The Nation:

We are in the catastrophe that Senator McCain described right now.

We've got bloodletting taking place, we see great influence of Iran in the region as a consequence as--of us moving forward.

And so those of us who object to what I consider to be a disastrous policy on the part of the Bush administration have, in fact, put forward a different approach.

He then put forward the basic tenets of an alternative strategy that are broadly accepted within the Democratic Party:

...a well-structured phased redeployment, in concert with a surge in diplomacy in the region, and a improvement in terms of how we deal with reconstruction, and how we convene regional powers, including by the way the Iranians and the Syrians...

...there are risks involved in that approach, but there's certainly no more risks than the approach that is being pursued by the Administration and Senator McCain, which suggests that we can simply continue the course, that we've been on for the last several years, that's resulted in over 3000 Americans dying, and us spending over 400 billion dollars with no end in sight.

Obama talks of a gradual redeployment starting in 4-6 months. Rep. John Murtha has pushed for a faster timetable.

But on ABC's This Week. Murtha hit similar notes, talking of a need for a "heavy diplomatic effort," and challenging the neocon strategic worldview, arguing that "redeployment is the first step to stability in the Middle East."

In turn, Murtha wisely made permanent bases a key to a change in strategic course:

No permanent bases is something that Iraqis...want. They feel we're occupiers.

They say ... that Al Qaeda is the one that causes the division and sectarian violence. That's not what causes the sectarian violence. It's the invasion itself. It's the occupation [that] causes the sectarian violence. That's the problem we have, and we have to change direction.

Sen. Chris Dodd on Meet The Press, also made the case that better diplomacy can stabilize Iraq:

We need to move to a different strategy. The emphasis needs to be on robust, muscular diplomacy, deal with regional leaders, insist upon the kind of political leadership inside the country, and then ask our military people to do the border kind of security, the training that can be done, the counterterrorism activities, but get them out of these major urban areas and insist that the 300,000 Iraqis ... which we've trained, to assume that responsibility in their own country.

As did Sen. Chuck Hagel, essentially a Democrat when it comes to foreign policy, who also subtly noted the failure of the current neocon strategy:

...let's start with some alternatives. Seventy-nine recommendations made by the Baker-Hamilton Commission report. One of them focuses right on what I've always believed will, in the end, be the result of Iraq and the Middle East, and that's a political settlement.

That means some kind of effort be made -- and I didn't hear much about this on Wednesday night in the president's speech -- to try to focus our efforts on a political accommodation, resulting in a political resolution...

...The Middle East is in more trouble today, more combustible, more dangerous than at any time since World War II. And you can measure that in, in Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian states, Iran, Syria.

And to say that we are going to feed more American young men and women into that grinder, put them in the middle of a tribal, sectarian civil war, is not going to fix the problem.

We are hearing from Dems some consistent themes, and a greater willingness to challenge the neocons at the big picture, strategic level -- as opposed to getting bogged down in tactical quibbles.

There's still more work for Dems to do if they are to have a truly coordinated message. Otherwise, GOPers like Cheney are going to keep accusing Dems of not having a "coherent policy."

But yesterday, we had some steps in the right direction.