Matthew Yglesias' recent post, A Different Kind of Hack Gap, which praktike pointed to in Checking In, is well worth highlighting further, not just for his post but for the comment thread.

First his post, which has a good collection of links to some thoughtful pieces on alternatives to the Bush approach to combatting terrorism.

I've recommended it before, but now that they're advertising with me, let me recommend once again The Century Foundation's report Defeating The Jihadists. ... Let me also recommend Winning The War On Terror from the minority staff of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security along with the HSC minority staff's other reports. There's also good stuff on the New American Strategies website, and in the DLC's Progressive Internationalism document. I also like the Truman Project from Oxblog's better half (quarter?) Rachel Belton.

People out there are thinking and writing about this stuff, but it's not hitting the radar screen, even of Democrats who are political junkies. As Yglesias notes:

[I]t would be unthinkable for Democratic hacks to be as unaware of the basic orientation of Democratic wonk thinking on health care, education, and the economy as they seem to be about Democratic wonk thinking on national security.

Yet the typical young Democratic voter/activist doesn't quite seem to understand that they don't know what the Democratic wonks are thinking and saying. They're at the most primitive of Rumsfeld's epistimology: they don't even know what they don't know. So the comment thread begins:

I am not sure there is so much need for hacks to be conversant in actual policy details. The Republicans won the presidency without really having any specific policies, much less detailed explanation by their hacks of such policies. Sadly, the job of the hack seems to have become more about obfuscating your side's unpopular policies or just making 'policies' up that don't have inconvenient details.

And from there it went spinning into Swift Vets and OBL October suprises, and polls, and Ohio etc etc. Perhaps unintentionally proving the point that part of the hack's job is to make stuff up.

A sobering reading. And one that reinforces Yglesias hypothesis: ithe Democrats certainly need to build the brand, but "that means you need to know the product."