It’s easy to despair at our current atmosphere of raging partisan fury. As the Bush administration has looked tired and unfocused, a frustrated hawk may start looking at what the opposition party has to offer.

Democrats can’t all be like Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and John Murtha, right? There must be someone beyond Senator Lieberman with some serious proposals on terrorism and national security that could make a hawk exclaim, “Hey, that’s not a bad idea. The Bush administration ought to implement that right now!”

To great fanfare, the Democrats aimed to refute 40 years worth of perceived weakness on protecting the country by unveiling last week a plan for real security, protecting Americans and restoring leadership in the world. It was creatively titled, “Real Security, Protecting Americans and Restoring Leadership in the World.”

Sadly, it is not a plan. It is more specifically, a wish list, or a compilation of goals. They’re nice goals, but there isn’t much detail on how electing a Democratic House or Senate in 2006 or a Democratic president in 2008 will make these wonderful things happen.

Generally, the Democrats want to spend a whole lot more money on things we’re already doing, like homeland security, mental health services for troops returning from Iraq, and expanding health care for military retirees. (Their plan for reducing our dependence on foreign oil calls for more funding for some of their favorite programs like the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the Weatherization Assistance Program and the creation of “a national tire fuel efficiency program.”)

More funding may help in these areas, but one can’t help but notice that small fortunes are spent on these tasks already. The great thing about the charge, “the party in power has spent X, but solving the problem will require X+1” is that it always works. No matter how much your opponent spends, you can always contend that a “real solution” takes more, the amount that you want.

On the thorniest issues, the plans (and that stretches the term) get disturbingly vague. On fighting terrorism, Democrats pledge to “Eliminate Osama Bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan and end the threat posed by the Taliban.” Truly some groundbreaking proposals.

On Iran and North Korea, the Democrats pledge to “redouble efforts to stop nuclear weapons development.” This is one step away from echoing Avis car rental and declaring, “we try harder.”

Looking for more specifics in the Democrats’ policy on Iran, a vigorous roll of the eyes is warranted by the party’s lament, “the U.S. subcontracted the problem to the EU3 (France, UK and Germany) but has provided only lukewarm support to them.”

A party that so relentlessly beats the drum on multilateralism and the “global test” cannot argue that we should trust our allies and let them do more, and the once that policy is enacted, turn around and claim that we’re “subcontracting.”

In dealing with North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, the Democrats call for a “results-oriented tempo of diplomacy”, including a pledge not to attack and renouncing efforts to force a regime change, if Pyongyang offers a verified elimination of its nuclear and missile programs. Anyone want to bet the arms-dealing dictator will take that deal? And does anyone trust that he won’t aim to undermine the “verification”? You bet your life. No, really.

On page after page, we see lofty goals followed by vague pledges of better performance. “Prevent the growth of radical fundamentalism, and advance U.S. interests through diplomacy and development.” “Develop a nuclear “security culture. Exchange ‘best practices’ for securing nukes … Streamline to remove bureaucratic obstacles.” “Operate with reciprocal transparency.”

Hidden among phrases like “gold standards” and “strengthening cooperation” is this surprising nugget on relations with Russia: “The top of our agenda must be securing Russian cooperation in preventing terrorists from acquiring nukes. Other concerns, such as Russia’s backsliding on democracy, must be given lesser priority.” Somewhere, Henry Kissinger and other advocates of realpolitik are smiling.

The coverage of the Democrats’ plan-unveiling ceremony wasn’t glowing – an AP reporter observed that the plans were “many of the same proposals Democrats have offered before” – but it didn’t get laughed off the stage. Perhaps it should have.

One can argue with the Bush administration’s policies regarding Afghanistan, Iraq, al-Qaeda, North Korea, and other threats. But at least they have policies. The opposition has been working on its own platform for months, and given us this collection of status quo proposals, meaningless pledges and business-book buzzwords.

Only in the minds of Senator Reid and Ms. Pelosi is the establishment of a “national tire fuel efficiency program” considered part of a national security plan.

Mr. Geraghty, a contributing editor to National Review, is the author of a book on terrorism and voters that will be published in August 2006 by Simon and Schuster.