For several years, New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer has examined facets of the Bush Administration’s war on terror in laser-like detail, from the CIA’s creation of secret “black site” prisons around the world, to its dramatic expansion of presidential powers.

The man named as President George W. Bush’s new homeland security adviser is a veteran prosecutor who helped promote the Administration’s legislation to grant immunity to telecommunications companies who took part in surveillance programs.

Lawrence Haas isn’t the first to suggest that Democrats might blow a sure thing.

Yet Haas, vice president of the U.S.-based Committee on the Present Danger, offers a theory that goes well beyond the Democrats-always-shoot-themselves-in-the-foot school of thought.

He suggests that the party may lose the White House in 2008 because of its stance on national security.