The Feingold-Reid resolution had a poor showing this week, garnering only 29 votes in a cloture vote.

And that's inflated, because presidential candidates Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made clear they were only voting for cloture (which they knew would fail), not committing support for the resolution itself if it ever got to the Senate floor.

(Well, not that clear, as they were trying to prevent Feingold-Reid supporters, Chris Dodd and John Edwards from drawing distinctions.)

But this is not just a failure of will on the part of Dems, but a failure of vision. Dems have yet to collectively articulate an overarching foreign policy vision (like this one).

That would put redeployment out of Iraq into a broader context, address concerns that pullout in a vacuum would lead to deeper chaos, and create an environment where such a vote would not be pilloried as politically risky by the punditocracy.

For those Dems who think they're being politically clever and exuding foreign policy seriousness by avoiding firm cutoff dates: don't believe the hype.

In fact, you are being short-sighted as you cede discussion of broader vision to a bunch of whack-jobs.

This problem could become even larger if Chuck Hagel follows through on his hints to run as an independent.

Hagel is as conservative as they come on domestic issues, but offers a well-fleshed out internationalist, diplomacy-based foreign policy that will help him pick off liberal and moderate voters.

If the Democratic Party is considered unserious on foreign policy, that gives Hagel a larger opportunity get traction for a third-party ticket.

Achieving "seriousness" does not mean regurgitating the Hawk Lite views of the punditocracy.

It means convincing the voters that you have a thought-out game plan to achieve important long-term objectives, and you're not just reacting to the current crisis and poll numbers.

There's no excuse for not doing that.