How are the Democrats ever going to convince people that they are strong enough to lead the country if they are always whining about attacks by Republicans?

Senate Democrats demanded Thursday that President Bush order a halt to personal attacks on the party's leader, Sen. Harry Reid, and expressed regret they had failed to mount a stronger defense for his defeated predecessor.

"This is a new Democratic party," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a news conference called to release a letter telling Bush to muzzle his "political operatives."

"...It says to the president, `you will not intimidate us'," added Schumer, who likened the attacks on Reid to political knee-cappings.

The letter itself was written in milder terms. "We urge you to keep your word about being a uniter and publicly halt these counter-productive attacks so that we are able to work together in a bipartisan manner and debate issues on the merits," it says.

Bush and the White House have denied responsibility for the attacks.

But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, ridiculed that assertion, as Reid did earlier in the week.

"This is the Abu Ghraib defense, that a few renegade soldiers are responsible for their own behavior and the commanders are not accountable," said Durbin, second in the leadership behind Reid.

So now a partisan fund-raising letter evokes mention of Abu Ghraib. Hey, Harry, Chuck, and Dick, if you can't stand the heat, you know where you can go.