Here I was, feeling all mellow about how we should be able to rally around some commonsense principles in response to the complex prospects of political changes in the Middle East, and The New Republic strikes again. Their editors sure know how to put me seriously out of sorts. These guys give "idealism" a bad name, and I'm beginning to contemplate embracing "realism" with fervor.

The message from our grand political strategists at TNR is not that we should pull together behind sensible policies to promote better governance and open societies. Oh, that's all well and good, and Teddy Kennedy gets a nice little pat on the head for being a good boy and saying democracy in the Middle East is a good thing. But that's missing the Big Idea -- it's time to get into the democracy bidding wars. Who can be more "pro-democracy." And to give us just the incentive we need, they point to the silent regrets we all must share that Bill Clinton didn't make Middle East democracy the obsession of his administration. If we miss the bandwagon this time, we're really, really, really going to regret it.

The editors certainly make a valid point regarding the track record of the Bush Administration. It's important to force this Administration to pay attention to the long, hard, patient, frustrating slog at the level of institutions. Democracy can indeed be a devil once the details are examined -- both getting there and keeping it functioning to produce stable, effective governments. Fareed Zakaria wrote a best-seller about that in 2003 I seem to recall.

It's also true that one would be hard pressed to find many members of the Bush Administration who have demonstrated they have sound democracy-nurturing or institution-building instincts. They seem to fall either in the "we don't do institutions" school of Donald Rumsfeld or the "Dr Pangloss" school of Paul Wolfowitz. But the evolution of their policies in Iraq over the past year has shown they've done some learning, albeit the hard way, and they should be encouraged -- loud and often -- to keep up the good work, as I hope my most recent comments indicated.

I'm not sure which gets me more steamed -- the suggestion by the editors that Bill Clinton's efforts were misplaced to focus on strengthening the international economic architecture, halting destabilizing ethnic turmoil in the Balkans and bringing Yasser Arafat to a deal he should have taken, or the notion that the touchstone of US foreign policy for the foreseeable future is taking "democracy" -- whatever that may be -- to the dark reaches of the globe. They just can't get off their hobby-horse of remaking the world.

I do know that their rationale -- that the Bush Administration won't let liberals in on the action in places like Russia if we don't raise the ante -- is proof once again they don't understand how the Bush Administration plays politics. The proper role of liberals in the Bush universe is as punching-bag foils -- regardless of what any liberals actually do or say -- or as members of the anonymous cheering section well hidden behind the pom-poms on the sidelines.

But more important, the issues our policymakers have to deal with can't be addressed by sticking ideological labels on them. As I've noted before, the concept of "democracy" is content-free as a guide for policymaking. The choices facing the US are far more multifaceted and interdependent that some artificial choice between promoting "democracy" or acquiescing in "stability." And a single-minded "obsession" with remaking the world is as likely to erode American strategic strengths on a wide range of fronts as enhance its security from terrorists.

The problems US policymakers have today with Russia are not that Russia isn't democratic. There are certainly aspects of the Russian political system that are part and parcel of the irritations and tensions that are emerging in how Russia interacts with the rest of the world, and recent domestic political trends have exacerbated those external problems. But those problems would remain -- and might be substantially worse -- if Russia were overnight suddenly "democratic" or if "democracy" came to dominate the complex agenda the US and Russia share. Talking in terms of "democracy" is increasingly self-defeating in Latin America, where politicians of all stripes are working their way toward second-generation economic and political changes after the liberalizations of the 90s; and in doing so, they are often defining their visions in terms of how different they are from Washington. Does "democracy" help the US manage the lions' share of issues in its inter-hemispheric relations, which are principally in the economic and social spheres? Does "democracy" help the US find its way forward in defining evolving relations with China, or India, or Japan? Will it help Americans sort out when and where they should support interventions in horrific civil wars in Africa?

I have my own opinions on what US policies should and should not be doing on many of these issues, though I don't believe any are capable of clear-cut answers. What I do believe is clear, however, is that any group of self-proclaimed liberals who would criticize the Clinton Administration for failing to be sufficiently obsessed with democracy needs their collective heads examined. I certainly wouldn't look to them for guidance or trust them with either the fate of the US or of the global system. The French have an expression that I find apt for this sort of self-important nonsense: Ils ne sont pas serieux.