On Wednesday, the Miller Center welcomes Peter Bergen for a forum on his new book, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad. Today's post on Obama and national security comes from Stephen Knott, Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, and author of Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics.

For the first time in decades the Democratic Party will nominate a presidential candidate whose reputation as a tough, formidable Commander-in-Chief seems secure. Throughout much of the Cold War, the Republican Party held an edge on the “toughness” issue, be it Goldwater vs. Johnson, or Nixon vs. McGovern, or Reagan vs. Carter and Mondale, or Bush vs. Dukakis. Not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy condemned the Eisenhower/Nixon administration for passively standing by while the Soviet Union surpassed the United States has the Democratic Party been so well positioned to outflank the GOP on an issue Republicans once owned.

As recounted yesterday in Politico, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, Rick Santorum made a strong statement about John F. Kennedy's speech from September 12, 1960, in which Kennedy stressed the importance of the separation of church and state.

Kennedy famously said, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute."

Santorum vehemently disagreed: “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” And he noted that the idea made him want to throw up.

In the Miller Center’s Presidential Speech Archive, we feature transcripts, audio, and video of many famous presidential speeches, including the full speech that President Kennedy gave in 1960 (the excerpt Santorum referred to begins at 1:47).