It is easy to take the middle road when you are being pushed so hard by the right and the left on combating terrorism. This is a speech the president has to make because no one is happy with his policies. The president just dodged a bullet at Notre Dame, but this issue is different platitudes might not cut it. We’ll see how he does.

What would be good to hear in the speech is that a lot what we have done the last seven years to protect the nation was right and necessary-and we should build on that-rather than pillory the past in search of a few more percentage points of popularity. We’ll see.