Tomorrow, The New York Times runs a couple of stories on the newly-found spine among Democrats. First, the team of Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse write that the Dems are beginning to heat up the rhetoric on Hurricane Katrina.

After 10 days of often uncertain responses to the Bush administration's management of Hurricane Katrina, Democratic leaders unleashed a burst of attacks on the White House on Wednesday, saying the wreckage in New Orleans raised doubts about the country's readiness to endure a terrorist attack and exposed ominous economic rifts that they said had worsened under five years of Republican rule.

From Democratic leaders on the floor of Congress, to a speech by the Democratic National Committee chairman at a meeting of the National Baptist Convention in Miami, to four morning television interviews by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrats offered what was shaping up as the most concerted attack that they had mounted on the White House in the five years of the Bush presidency.

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The display of unity was striking for a party that has been adrift since Mr. Kerry's defeat, struggling to reach consensus on issues like the war in Iraq and the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. The aggressiveness was evidence of what Republicans and Democrats said was the critical difference between the hurricane and the Sept. 11 attacks: Democrats appear able to question the administration's competence without opening themselves to attacks on their patriotism.

Not insignificantly, they have been emboldened by the fact that Republicans have also been critical of the White House over the past week, and by the perception that this normally politically astute and lethal administration has been weakened and seems at a loss as it struggles to manage two crises: the aftermath of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast and the political difficulties that it has created for Mr. Bush in Washington.

Their response may have allowed the Democrats to seize the issue that Republicans had hammered them with in the past two elections: national security. "Our government failed at one of the most basic functions it has - providing for the physical safety of our citizens," Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat who is considering a run for president in 2008, declared in a speech on the Senate floor.

Looking specifically, Eric Lichtblau details recent Democratic attacks on Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.

Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary who has been the Bush administration's point man in fielding criticism of the hurricane relief effort, came under fire Wednesday from some Congressional Democrats for private remarks about the conditions faced by storm survivors that struck the lawmakers as insensitive.

The new criticism was set off by a private and sometimes contentious briefing that Mr. Chertoff and other senior administration officials gave to House members on Tuesday night on the status of relief efforts.

Exactly what was said at the closed-door briefing remained in some dispute Wednesday.

Administration officials and Democrats at the briefing agreed that Mr. Chertoff and other speakers emphasized that news images showing horrendous conditions for evacuees in shelters did not reflect the totality of the federal government's response.

As both articles indicate, the new tact taken by Democrats runs some risks, primary among which is the chance that they become viewed simply as the party of complainers and naysayers. That said, polling in recent months has indicated that the public generally and independents, in particular, would like to see stronger opposition from the Democrats. Given the lackadaisical federal response to Hurricane Katrina, at least initially, this might be just the time for Democrats to hammer away at Republican policies and actions.