Suppose that during the previous administration the Democrats had opposed President Bush's efforts to protect airplanes from would-be bombers and had blocked his strategy to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorists' hands. 
 
 It's a safe bet Bush would charge, as he did more than once during his presidency, that Democrats are "not interested in the security of the American people." Other Republicans would no doubt be running ads juxtaposing Democrats with Osama bin Laden, or alleging, as they did then, that Democrats are giving "comfort to America's enemies." 
 
 Yet right now, Republicans are providing the comfort. They are objecting loudly to new airport security measures designed to detect bombs hidden under clothing. And they are blocking a Senate vote on a treaty with Russia that is critical to securing loose nukes and keeping Iran from gaining the bomb. 
 
 For Democrats, the opposition's gamesmanship with the security should present an opportunity. Republicans seem to have entered a post-post-9/11 era, in which national security is no longer a higher priority than their interest in undermining President Obama. There's no need to resort to the demagoguery once used against Democrats, but neither would it hurt the White House and congressional Democrats to point out that their opponents are trying to weaken Americans' security. 
 
 Let's start with START, the proposed nuclear pact with Russia that Senate Republicans such as Jon Kyl (Ariz.) are attempting to derail, at least until the next Congress. Since the expiration of the previous START treaty last December, there have been no U.S. inspectors in Russia to keep an eye on the country's thousands of nuclear warheads. If the Senate doesn't come up with the 67 votes needed for ratification, says Travis Sharp of the Center for a New American Security, there's a risk Russia will retaliate by removing its logistical support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, abandoning its cooperation in preventing nuclear proliferation, and thwarting U.S. efforts to keep Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. 
 
 But don't take his word for it. Listen to Richard Lugar, top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations committee and one man who still puts the national interest above political considerations. "We're talking today about the national security of the United States of America," he pleaded on Wednesday. "[T]his treaty must be ratified and be ratified in this session of the Congress.... We're talking about thousands of warheads that are still there, an existential problem for our country. To temporize at this point I think is inexcusable." 
 
 Or listen to Bob Gates, the Bush/Obama defense secretary. "The new START treaty has the unanimous support of America's military leadership," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, calling for a strong bipartisan majority to support the treaty because of "the security it provides to the American people." 
 
 To borrow Bush's phrase, are Republicans not interested in the security of the American people? 
 
 Then there's the backlash over the new imaging and pat-downs being used to screen airport passengers for explosives. A CBS News poll found that 81 percent of Americans favor use of the new imaging machines, but Republican lawmakers feel otherwise. 
 
 In the House, Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) has already introduced legislation rescinding the new security. Meanwhile, Republican senators, rediscovering their inner civil libertarians, this week took turns criticizing Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole over the administration's tightened security. 
 
 "I wouldn't want my wife to be touched in the way that these folks are being touched. I wouldn't want to be touched that way," said Sen. George LeMieux (Fla.). "I think weve gone too far." 
 
 Sen. Mike Johanns (Neb.) warned of a "tipping point" against security screening. "Does that worry you, that maybe we're at a point here where... people just thing you've overstepped?" 
 
 Pistole reminded Johanns that "the threats are real." 
 
 "I'm thinking nothing's going to change," Johanns complained. 
 
 Pistole's response should shame Johanns and his colleagues. "If your question is, do I understand the sensitivities of people? Yes. If you're asking, am I going to change the policies? No, because I think that it is being informed by the latest intelligence, the latest efforts by terrorists to kill our people in the air. No, I'm not going to change those policies." 
 
 This may be the post-post-9/11 era, but Pistole, a career FBI guy, is still interested in the security of the American people. Are Republicans? 
 
 danamilbank@washpost.com 
 
 Dana Milbank was online to chat with Post readers at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 19. You can read a trasncript of the discussion here. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — In a stinging rebuke to President Barack Obama by Republicans as well as members of his own party, the House ignored a veto threat Thursday and overwhelmingly approved Republican legislation erecting fresh hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the United States. 
 
 Dozens of Democrats joined Republicans as the House passed the measure 289-137. That margin exceeded the two-thirds majority required to override a veto, and it came despite a rushed, early morning visit to the Capitol by top administration officials in a futile attempt to limit Democratic defections for the measure. 
 
 Thursday's vote came six days after a burst of bombings and shootings in Paris killed 129 people, wounded many more and revived post-9/11 jitters in the U.S. and Europe. The attacks have turned the question of admitting people fleeing war-torn Syria and Iraq into a high-stakes political issue in both the United States and Europe, and many congressional Democrats were willing to vote against their party's lame duck president for fear of angering voters nervous about security at home. 
 
 Democrats opposing the GOP bill said the U.S. has no business abandoning its age-old values, including being a safe haven for people fleeing countries racked by violence. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks and controls vast swathes of Syria and Iraq, despite a growing military campaign against them by the U.S. and other nations. 
 
 "Defeating terrorism should not mean slamming the door in the faces of those fleeing the terrorists. We might as well take down the Statue of Liberty," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. 
 
 Republicans said that in dangerous times, the government must first protect its own. 
 
 "It is against the values of our nation and the values of a free society to give terrorists the opening they are looking for" by not tightening entry restrictions, said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. 
 
 Before Thursday's House vote, the White House sent chief of staff Denis McDonough and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to the Capitol to try winning over Democrats. Democratic aides said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., had a forceful exchange with Johnson, saying that opposition to the bill would be a terrible vote for Democrats that could cost them seats in next year's elections. 
 
 With the House's 246 Republicans ready to solidly support the legislation, the administration was eager to keep the final tally for the bill below the two-thirds margin required to override a veto. In a sign of the conflicting political undercurrents confronting Democrats, senior House Democrats said they did not push rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose the bill. 
 
 "I've said to them from the start, 'Nobody's asked you to do anything. Do whatever works for you, for your district,'" House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who opposed the legislation, told journalists. 
 
 Freshman Rep. Brad Ashford, D-Neb., who faces a tough re-election fight next year, called the Paris attacks "a game changer" and supported the bill, saying, "I cannot sit back and ignore the concerns of my constituents and the American public." 
 
 The measure, which in effect would suspend admissions of Syrian and Iraqi refugees, would require the FBI to conduct background checks on people coming to the U.S. from those countries. It would oblige the heads of the FBI and Homeland Security Department and the director of national intelligence to certify to Congress that each refugee "is not a threat to the security of the United States." 
 
 On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. should welcome refugees from the region and bolster America's defenses and intelligence operations. 
 
 On the Senate floor, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who hasn't yet scheduled debate on the issue, said Thursday it is time "to press pause" so policy makers could decide whether adequate vetting procedures are in place, calling it "the most responsible thing for the administration to do right now." 
 
 Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he's been disgusted in recent days by the comments from Republicans and called it "fear-mongering and bigotry." 
 
 In a statement assuring a veto, the White House said the GOP bill would not improve Americans' security. It said the legislation "would unacceptably hamper our efforts to assist some of the most vulnerable people in the world, many of whom are victims of terrorism, and would undermine our partners in the Middle East and Europe in addressing the Syrian refugee crisis." 
 
 Currently, the refugee screening process typically takes 18 to 24 months and includes interviews, fingerprinting and database crosschecks by several federal agencies. Syrians undergo additional screening involving data from the U.N. Refugee Agency and interviews by Homeland Security Department officials trained to question Syrians. 
 
 The Obama administration wants to increase the 70,000 refugees to be admitted from around the world this year by 10,000, with much of the increase for Syrians. 
 
 The White House said that of 2,174 Syrians admitted to the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, none has been arrested or deported because of allegations they harbored extremist ambitions. 
 
 ___ 
 
 AP Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner and writers Andrew Taylor and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
– If Democrats had opposed President George W. Bush’s efforts to protect airplanes, the former president likely would have accused them of not caring about national security, and “Republicans would no doubt be running ads juxtaposing Democrats with Osama bin Laden,” writes Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. But here we are nine years out from 9/11, and it’s the Republicans objecting—“loudly”—to the new TSA procedures. "National security is no longer a higher priority than their interest in undermining President Obama,” he writes in a column that also discusses their opposition to the new arms-control treaty with Russia. Last week on Slate, David Weigel made a similar point: “Before 9/11, the prevailing conservative/libertarian/Republican opinion of the national-security state—of any government effort to protect Americans at the point of a gun and the touch of a rubber glove—was mistrust.” But we’re now in, Milbank writes, “the post-post-9/11 era ,” and “for Democrats, the opposition's gamesmanship with the security should present an opportunity. There's no need to resort to the demagoguery once used against Democrats, but neither would it hurt the White House and congressional Democrats to point out that their opponents are trying to weaken Americans' security.”