SwiftVets.com

[Fphamm]

[Dimsdale]

Here is a few recommendations I would pass on to the President:

At the time prior to 9/11, Kerry, as member of the Senate Intelligence committee (we will be generous and give Kerry the benefit of the doubt and presume that he actually attended some of the committee meetings) had access to the exact same intelligence information Bush had, and came to the exact same conclusions at the time.

The only difference was that the President had to make decisions AT THAT TIME, not years later in hindsight. And the President had to assume the worst case scenario, particularly after the worst attack on our soil in our history, or he wouldn't have been true to his oath of office to protect America and the Amercan people. If, as Kerry agreed at the time, Hussein was poised to become an imminent threat, then Iraq had to be preemptively attacked, particularly after one final attempt to get Saddam to do the right thing and submit to full inspections.

There was no room for vacillation, equivocation, or flipflopping. We were attacked, period. We had to respond, or the words of Bin Laden, calling us a paper tiger that (up to then) had a record of not vigorously responding to terrorist attacks.

The President was not in some debating hall like the Senate, where one could ruminate over important issues for months or years. He was on the spot, front and center, and he did his duty. And there wasn't a peep out of Kerry at the time.

The only way the U.S. and the rest of the world were able to verify that Saddam apperently had no WMDs, or got rid of them in some way, was to finally invade and go in there. We HAD the "permission slip" from the UN in the form of their final resolution on Iraq, so the "global test" was passed.

As for the economy, ask Kerry why, in every single speech he has made critical of the President's economic policies, Kerry has never once mentioned 9/11 and the inherited Clinton recession. Nor has he mentioned the collapse of Enron or Arthur Anderson, problems that festered during the CLINTON administration.

Bush has to pound home that the projected surplus was just that: projected. And it did not take into account the effects of 9/11 or the accounting scandals. If anything, the Bush tax cuts ameliorated the effects of the Clinton recession and 9/11.
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Everytime he had a choice, Kerry chose to side with communists rather than the United States.

[joeshero]

Hi all,
this is Joe Scarborough's Real Deal last night. It's excellent. I hope the Bush's team have a second to read his suggestions. Terry Holt was on Joe's show last night and perhaps he can bring these issues to the camp. Let's see how Bush will crush Kerry in the second debate.


...

Mr. President, because of who you are and the position you hold, your staff members aren‘t going to tell you what you need to hear. But I am. First, your debate performance Thursday night was lousy. Forget what you are reading in the national polls. They don‘t matter. You and I both know this election is going to be about who can get their base of supporters out to the polls on November 2. Before the first debate, Democratic leaders I talked to were despondent, and they knew that that meant that their turnout was going to be depressed, but your lack of focus and your poor performance let John Kerry back into the race by giving Democrats a reason to hope, and a reason to believe that they can win.

Now, whether your advisors are going to tell you that or not doesn‘t matter. It‘s the truth. You know what else is the truth? The past is the past. You can‘t change it. But you can do a few things moving forward. First, do what all great politicians do, turn your disadvantage into an advantage. If I were you, I would tell voters on the campaign trail and during the debate that you may not be a smooth talker, but you are a straight shooter, and in a war against terrorists who want to destroy America, that is what matters the most in a president.

Third, get off the campaign trail and practice before your next debate. Let‘s face it, Jeb and your mother got most of your family‘s public speaking skills. That means you have to try harder, and it means you have to practice more. You simply can‘t afford to turn in another poor performance this week, so get to work.

Fourth, key in on the fact that even though this is an economic debate, there is no economic issue as important as fighting terror. Osama bin Laden knows that, and he knows that the way to hurt America is to disrupt our economy. Use Friday‘s debate as a chance to circle back, and hit all the points that you forgot to talk about last week, like how John Kerry voted to gut intelligence in the 1990s, how he voted to kill many of the weapons systems that made Operation Iraqi Freedom such a great success last year, and how he has switched his position on Iraq nine times in the past 12 months.

And finally, figure out how to get into the zone before you walk on stage Friday night. In the times we have spoken one on one, I found you to be very impressive, intelligent, thoughtful leader, but that side of you did not come across last week. Don‘t care what your staff members are saying. Your facial expressions and your body language were unpresidential, and your stammering only confirmed what your worst enemies have been saying about you for years. As one who has seen you up close, I know they are wrong. But you have to figure out a way to show your best side to the rest of the American people. Your presidency and the future direction of this country depends on it.

Now, a message for all of you who E-mailed me to call me an idiot or a traitor for telling you the truth about the President‘s performance on Friday. I respectfully suggest that you are the idiots. Political leaders don‘t need fans kissing up to them and telling them how great they are after they flopped. Now, believe me, I have been there. I know in Washington there are plenty of staff members who get paid to do that. Instead, political leaders need somebody who tells them the truth, so they can correct their mistakes and improve on their weaknesses. Where I come from, it‘s called constructive criticism, and it‘s what I expect from my friends. I know that‘s a concept that may be foreign to party hacks in Washington D.C., but in SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY, it‘s the “Real Deal.”
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All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

[swing votr]

[Kimmymac]

I will be in Boston on Friday, so I had to rent a car. I searched the net, found me a deal (I cannot stand paying a bunch of $$$ for rental anything. I am still a cheap-o Navy wife at heart, I don't care how much money he makes now.) Anyway, the taxes and fees on this thing were OUTRAGEOUS!

Gee whiz, I can NOT wait until Mr. John Faux Kerry does for America what he has helped do to Mass.

Ye gads! He voted to raise the taxes on gasoline 18 times, and he has the gall to attack the president?

That crap about Herbert Hoover: when these ********* aren't outright lying, they are exaggerating beyond the point of lying. Everytime I listen to them I feel like I am a young and single girl. Alone at a bar. Near a naval base.

Kerry and the ********* make me feel like I am the only meat in 100 miles of shark infested ocean. Sometimes, like during the last debate, when Kerry really got revved up? He looked like the big bad wolf, and for a second there, I felt like Little Red Riding Hood.

No wonder he can't win the "women's vote". We are looking for a nice woodsman to kill a wolf for us, while Kerry IS the wolf.

[joeshero]

Excellent suggestions from Dick Morris.


DEBATE TIPS FOR THE CHIEF
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/19972.htm

THE strategy required for coaching a presi dent for a debate is the exact opposite of that you have to use to prep a challenger. Challengers need to learn as much as they can to prepare for all questions and become conversant with every area of policy. A president is already informed; the coach's job is to help him sift through what he knows and hone from it a coherent response to challenges from his adversary.
In a sense, a challenger needs to learn more. An incumbent needs to concentrate on what he has to say.

To this end, perhaps these ideas can help Camp Bush as they prepare to undo the massive damage of the first debate.

When Kerry says that homeland security is inadequate and that only 5 percent of the shipping containers are inspected or points out that thousands of pages of wire intercepts have not been translated . . .

. . . Bush should say: "It is very easy to pick on one aspect of our security approach and say it is flawed. But remember one basic fact: If I told you on Sept, 12, 2001 that there would be no further attacks on U.S. soil for the next three years, you'd have thought I was out of my mind. But there have been no attacks. If we're inspecting 5 percent of containers, it's the right 5 percent. Judge us on our record: We have kept America safe."

When Kerry says we shouldn't have attacked Saddam because he wasn't involved in the 9/11 conspiracy . . .

. . . Bush's answer ought to be: "Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor. Hitler had nothing to do with it. But FDR realized we needed to fight all fascism, not just the fascist regime that attacked us. Yes, Hitler made it easy on FDR by declaring war on us. But if he hadn't, does anyone doubt that Roosevelt would have gone to war with Germany anyway?"

When Kerry calls the war in Iraq a mistake and a diversion from the War on Terror . . .

. . . Bush should hit him between the eyes: "Al Qeada operatives are congregating in Iraq. We can kill them there before they can spread mayhem around the world. If we can hunt down those who would attack us in the caves of Pakistan and of Afghanistan and the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad, how is that a diversion from the War on Terror? It's not. It is fundamental to success in that war."

And when Kerry accuses Bush of neglecting our allies . . .

. . . The president must set the record straight: "We have the single most important ally in the fight against terror: Pakistan is helping us hunt down terrorists who have escaped from Afghanistan. As to France, Germany and Russia, the evidence of the Oil-for-Food scandal suggests that no amount of diplomacy would have induced them to abandon a regime that was paying them vast sums of money to stay loyal."

If Kerry says we let bin Ladin escape . . .

. . . Bush has to say: "It's easy to second-guess a specific military decision, but I leave those questions to the generals who are trained to make them. We may not have bin Laden, but he is running from cave to cave to cave and hasn't been able to strike at us. And we do have Saddam. And we did get Khadafy to flip and support us. And we have the terrorists on the run."

When Kerry criticizes any aspect of the war effort, like the shortage of body armor . . .

. . . The president should really let him have it. "It was not me, but you who voted against adequate intelligence funding, to abolish the CIA, to cut defense budgets and, ultimately, against the $87 billion for our efforts in Iraq. Those were your votes, not mine."

If the presidents works on his moves, he'll be back in the race.
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All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.