Richard Cohen doesn't like the President or the war in Iraq. But he does wonder if it is a good thing for the Democratic Party that they seem to have given up on their traditional idealism about helping other countries suffering under tyrants.

In 1984, to my consternation, I heard the New Deal theme song "Happy Days Are Here Again" played at the Republican National Convention in Dallas. That swiping of a political icon -- Ronald Reagan had earlier borrowed FDR's "rendezvous" phrase for his speech praising Barry Goldwater -- has been followed by a more serious one: the theft of altruism. It is now Republicans, at least neocons, who often speak most forcefully about right and wrong in the world. Just as Scowcroft is doing, it is the Democrats who often speak the cold language of realism that sometimes seems downright uncaring.

Bush's soggy religiosity clearly should not be the basis of a foreign policy. But neither should a cold refusal to recognize the role that morality can play. The trick for the Democrats is to strike a balance, to honor their party's tradition of internationalism and appeal to the American desire to whack the bad guys. America -- as it ultimately did in Bosnia -- can still do some good in the world. That's realism, too.

The problem is that few problems today can be solved with high altitude bombings that don't involve boots on the ground. We have to decide if we we want a coldly pragmatic policy or not.