The leadership of the Democratic Party has, by its public words this spring, disgraced themselves for a generation. Republicans have the right -- and the duty -- to engrave in the public mind the springtime Democratic perfidy and cowardice in the face of the enemy.

This spring and early summer: Sen. Harry Reid said the war is lost; Gov. Bill Richardson said that on his first day in the Oval Office he would order our troops to leave Iraq immediately (even if it meant throwing down their weapons on the way out); Hillary bragged that if Mr. Bush doesn't end the war, she would do so immediately upon her arriving in the Oval Office (God preserve us); and Mr. Obama took pride of place in his adamant opposition to, and call for immediate departure from, the Iraq war.

Gen. Patton also observed that "Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser." That is as true today as it was six decades ago. (This is the great misreading of the American public by the current Democratic Party. We Americans are only sentimental about dogs -- we have three in our family -- not about human losers. We love kick-ass football players -- unless they hurt a dog, and then we righteously send them to hell, where they belong).

The public must not be permitted to forget these cowardly public statements by the Democrats. It is the job of the Republicans this fall and winter to remorselessly and repeatedly remind the public of what the Democrats were saying this spring. In that disgrace lies the potential for a well-deserved Democratic Party defeat in November 2008.