It seems like ancient history now, but there was a time when Democrats were focused on Pentagon procurement, not just the scandal of $600 toilet seats and blunderbuss calls to cut the defense budget but a serious debate about the weapons systems we really need and how to avoid paying too much for them. Sen. Gary Hart was a leading advocate of this new thinking on defense and so was James Fallows whose book, National Defense, was the Bible of the movement.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=146790