Just when Republicans thought they had Democrats caught in another election-year “terror trap,” The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward sprung them by refocusing attention on the mess in Iraq.

That’s the politics of national security. At the moment, the advantage would seem to favor Democrats.

But the grim reality of the situation makes the politics seems trivial. Voters have a choice between Congressional Republicans who rarely question a bull-headed, arrogant administration that’s slowly losing the war in Iraq, and Democrats who simply can’t be trusted to fight the nation’s enemies.

Woodward’s new book, “State of Denial,” follows several others that tell the same story: The United States went into Iraq with too few troops to secure the country; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld refused to plan for a post-invasion occupation or the possibility of an insurgency and intimidated top generals into going along with his undermanning of the operation.

The book portrays President Bush as being willfully blind to the realities unfolding in Iraq – and deceptive in conveying them to Congress and the nation.

I think Woodward fails to credit the need for a president to defend his war policies for the sake of maintaining political support and troop morale. On the other hand, if he failed to ask incisive questions in private – and whack heads, where appropriate – he was not fulfilling his role as a strong wartime leader.