DENVER, Colo. — If R. Kelly can churn four albums out of 12 Play, surely I can expand on "The Obama Doctrine" in time for DNC NationalSecurityNite. Fresh outs from the Washington Independent!

When the Democrats talk tonight about national security, 2004 will appear like a long-forgotten, sepia-toned era. The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) represents a quantum leap in terms of both style and substance. Rather than arguing that they can more competently execute Bush administration policies, as they did in 2004, the 2008-vintage Democratic Party, led by Obama, is presenting a more thoroughgoing critique. It begins with a clear timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. But it does not stop there.

Along with this new vigor on foreign policy is a sense of political confidence that the public is ready, in the wake of the failures of the Bush era, to embrace liberal solutions for national security. By contrast, it will be the Republicans in Minnesota who rely on war heroism to distract from their continuity with the Bush era.

“There’s a confidence, a strength and an infrastructure on national security that I’ve never seen before in this party,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and an influential foreign-policy thinker in Democratic circles. “Crisis always creates opportunity, and this is no exception.”

Consider it The Obama Doctrine: Reloaded.