As dangerous as President Bush’s record on Iraq may be to Republican presidential candidates in 2008, Democrats also are risking revival of fears that their party is weak on foreign policy.

If Democratic candidates embrace the strategy of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., to cut off funds for U.S. troops in Iraq, they deserve to be compared to the losers of the past – George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

All lost presidential elections – often by landslides – mainly because voters perceived them as being unreliable in protecting the country from foreign adversaries.

This year, as in the past, the force-averse liberal base of the party is demanding ever-stronger statements and actions in opposition to the Iraq War, and party leaders are obliging, with Murtha, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and presidential candidates either obliging or leading the process.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is being massively pressured to apologize for her 2002 vote authorizing the war, as former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., did. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who opposed the war from the beginning, has set a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. forces, as has Edwards. Clinton hasn’t, but she says she would end the war if it’s still going in 2009.

It’s true that Bush’s misguided and deeply unpopular policies in Iraq probably put an even greater political burden on Republicans.