2) Yes, that was what people wanted. But a leader must not always just give the mobs and masses what they want while they are panicing. A true leader and representative is a representative of the people in their better minds. Of course if he doesn’t have one like Duh?bya, that is not possible.

Hopefully, a Senator on the foreign relations committee would have access to better intell and info than a scared citizen who would assume that you could just do a surgical strike to take out Saddam without disturbing the roads and bridges, and then just walk away without doing damage to the people or infra-structure. A good leader knows you have to look wisely at reality and admit the consequences. We should have known that if we were going into Iraq it would involve great destruction of all aspects of their society.

3) Now we�re fighting the people we were supposed to be setting free – and it isn�t because they hate freedom – they�re rejecting our puppet government.

Had we walked away right after we’d razed Iraq to take Saddam, they may have had civil war, or maybe the Sunni Baathists could have regained the reigns. No doubt they had planned for a guerrila war. In any case, Madman Insane would have been gone, but no good would have been done. Now the Iraqi would have had to deal with even greater failure of the infra-structure and economy, but would merely have seen a new dictator taking over–as will happen sooner or later despite our window dressing puppets claiming to seek democracy. It is becoming so clear that the most we can hope for is a trifurcation of Iraq into a Baathist Sunni Triangle, a Krdish northern area and an Iranian allied theocracy in the South. Even Duh?bya admits that he would consider a Shiite theocracy a “democratic” state that would coulnt as fulfillment of his dreams. However, both the Shiite and Sunni Bathist states would be much greater supporters of al Qaeda terrorists than were our worst fears while Saddam was in place. He was a true opponent of Iranian and all other fundamentalist Muslim theocratic a-holes. Of course Duj?bya, being himself a fundamentalist, theocratic a-hole, would consider that “democratic.”

Scott concludes by asking: “If we really set them free, how can we force a puppet government on them?”

But of course Duh?bya never wanted them free. He wanted beating them to give him popularity while keeping their oil under limited production so his oil buddies in Texas can make a killing in the energy market. That crap about “democracy” always was sheer crap.

“Don�t let him start talking as if all three wars are the same war – they aren�t. We could have fought one but not the others.”

Such abstractions ignore the inextricably intertwined realities in all three supposedly separate wars. For example:

1) “We�ve attacked with bombs the infrastructure like bridges and power plants – why? So we could rebuild them?”

Unfortunately, a surgical strike is out of the question when the cancer has metasticized throughiout the bloodstream. Madman Insane’s family and party supporters had tentacles woven throughout the country, with a large number of defenders in the vicinity of their chief. Even if we had airlifted 10,000 paratroopers into southern Baghdad when we had reason to believe Saddam was holed up in the bunker Bush hit to begin the war, and they had been able to kill or capture the main malignancy, as time has proven, 50,000 minor malignancies were flowing through the bloodstream of Iraq. So, removing Saddam would have set them “free”–but free for what. Everything in their history– both pre and post war– suggests that the Baathists would have just set themselves at each others’ necks while we sought to extricate our brigades from Baghdad. But that would have involved house to house fighting. Either we would have had to leave that up to the infantry walone who would have suffered exceedling casualties, or we could have had to call on our bombs and missiles to raze the way out. We would have had to disrupt the electical generation to take out communications and anti-air defences, attack the oil depots and refineries to halts Saddam’s refueling, etc. The factors are too long to mention even for this long winded writer.

We attacked Sadam and his military – that�s what people wanted.

You asked what questions he might ask you – understandable. I don’t know local politics but I’m sure there’s a pattern.
Watching TV advertising (something I try to do as little as possible), everything is backwards and upside down.
The most expensive cars are billed as ‘affordable’, which insults you if you can’t afford them, so the non-confrontational viewer choses not to be offended by pretending they could buy it if they really wanted to.
Laundry deturgents with a ‘fresh, clean scent’ are heavily dosed with the cheapest perfume on the market.
And so on.
Politics has taken up this lead – everything is backwards.
Someone who doesn’t pander to industry is robbing the populace of the benefits of taking extra special care of the needs of the industry.
I expect questions will come of this form – I don’t watch a lot of debates but I’ll tune into CPAN now and then.
Following this broken logic, a candidate is less suitable because they didn’t have aristicratic markings (industry associations, friends in high places, parents in high places); women don’t belong in politics because it would be a pointless trend bucking against a perfectly innocent and harmless trend for men to be elected; … I’m trying to think of more.
Again, this is all broken logic.

I knew a pathological lair once.
They start out nice enough, but you absolutely have to tow their line or they get nastier and nastier.
Dealing with him was one of the most awkward things I could imagine.
Besides how insulting it is, you don’t even know where to start – if you start
correcting one lie, will you be forced to correct other lies?
You just get a feeling that they’re far more serious about the whole
deal and perhaps should be allowed to continue lieing just to avoid
confrontation.
Any poor soul watching the interaction is going to be put off by the whole
situation and won’t have much of a chance to sort it out.
I can only imagine how I might deal with this situation, and my imagination says:
repremand them with just an “ah ah” sound like you would a child the
moment they start to lie – don’t let them get an inch.
Setting up false premises counts as lieing.
Start out on the offensive – don’t let them get the offensive.
The only way to do this is to point out their own paradoxes – a politican, like
a bad middle manager, will make them simaltainously responsible for
every good thing that happens and absolutely uninvolved in any
bad thing that happens.
A good manager has her nose in everything and is privy to everything – set the standards for him to play by.

You can’t out-promise him, so set higher standards.As soon as he starts to take credit for one thing but blame someone else for something else, call him on it.
Parties keep each other in checks and balances – in a balanced government, one party shouldn’t be able to “ruin” things for people such as by blocking legislation.
In fact, if no bill were passed in 100 years, there would be no grave damage done to the country – damage comes from misguided efforts too easily put through – so don’t allow him to blame a party for blocking something or not towing some line.
If he suggests you wouldn’t have passed some law, or won’t pass some law, remind everyone there are too many laws, too many bad laws, too many politicans in over their heads trying to legislate their way out of problems, and any decision the country makes should good and well represent not only
the concensus of everyone, but should represent the consensus people
hold for a period of time and are likely to continue to hold for generations.
Trying to push legislation through against the will of the people or with only narrow support is shameful.
It’s often said that you’ll regret more the things you don’t do in life than the things you do do. With legislation it’s naturally opposite – legislation takes away
the rights of others to do things.
Don’t let him suggest you would pass something that shouldn’t be.
Don’t let him suggest you wouldn’t pass something that needs to be.
Don’t counter with “yes I would” or “no I woudln’t” be instead with the idea that laws should be made carefully and not quickly and they often cause more problems than they create, and when laws are made, they must be something that most people can live with and that they cna live with for a long time.

Someone else pointed out the idealism angle – this is another common attack.
Cynisism is far more rampant now days.
Good thing happens when leaders with vision take office – bad things
happen when cynics take office.
It’s ironic that we’re supposed to be so proud, brave, and tough, yet fear drives us to duct tape up our houses and classify millitary budgets to protect them from terrorists.
So, if he implies (and he won’t say it) that you’re idealistic, imply – or say – he’s cynical, you’re popular because you make people feel good, and you make people feel good because you believe in them and the country, and you don’t think anything idealistic or cynical is necessary – our strength is in our roots and our traditions, not our willingness to react violently or our of character.
Of course, it’s backwards that he would imply you have any sort of idealism
as they’re fiercely idealistic, throwing science and even reports from their
own departments away when they don’t say what they want to hear.

With the war, we’ve fought three wars: we’ve attacked with bombs the infrastructure like bridges and power plants – why? So we could rebuild them?
We attacked Sadam and his military – that’s what people wanted.
Now we’re fighting the people we were supposed to be setting free – and
it isn’t because they hate freedom – they’re rejecting our puppet government.
If we really set them free, how can we force a puppet government on them?
Don’t let him start talking as if all three wars are the same war – they aren’t.
We could have fought one but not the others.
Likewise, just because we unseated Saddam doesn’t mean we have to
force a puppet government down their throat.
This is a false premise and if he starts pushing it, he’s pushing a lie.
It would also be a lie to say anyone can fix the mess as well as anyone else –
cooperating with our allies rather than bossing them around might
defuse the situation and corproate interests need to be decoupled from
peace interests.

I don’t want to pretend to know your secrets, but I’d like to pretend to pretend to – the “idealism” attack is less effective because you’re yourself just a bit cynical, and you aren’t a young man with a slick suit and a probable agenda.
When your mother comes and tells you how you’ve screwed up when your friends are around, this is one of the most embarassing things imaginable – and your insinuation that this guy isn’t honest, isn’t doing a good job, or is just plain getting wrong carries a huge amount of weight just because of the roles.
If your mother balls you out, you probably did something wrong.

Energy might come up.
Paying for the war is just as bad as maxing out our credit to pay for electric windmills or solar panels – it’s forcing one energy solution down everyones
throats whether they want it or not.
The market should speak for itself.
If gas is too expensive, people will look at – and buy – other things – but
the price is being kept artificially low through war.
if he implies the economy depends on energy, agree, but reject his
premise that it must be oil and the government must procure it us.
That’s a lie.

Greed seems to be the common theme – everyone feels entitled to
a bunch of stuff and we’re dieing to elect whomever we think is
corrupt enough to steal it for us.
We want giant SUVs, dinner out every night, big screen TVs, and all this stuff –
and we feel like we should have it because we work hard at jobs we don’t
like.
The simple truth is you get stuff when you work hard, you’re honest, and someone else isn’t robbing from you, and people and politicains need to be reminded of that.
Don’t let him start to imply our national wealth or personal wealths
hinges on us being bastards. That’s not good old fashioned values and it’s
not what’s worked in the past. When people get greedy and corrupt, the most corrupt of the lot are the only with anything in the end.

I wish I could be more specific about things he might ask you – I wish the political mavens who must be hanging out here would pipe up and answer your question too.

I’m a computer programmer – it’s often said you can’t lie your way into
making a program work.
I’m sure farmers have a similar saying – you can’t lie your way into a crop.
People need to be reminded that you can lie your way into office, but you
cna’t lie your way into freedom, wealth, or peace.

I’m sorry if I repeated things entirely too obvious – I’ve only seen a few of
your interviews – but I feel I should do what I can that might help.

We’re all cheering for you!

-scott

I left part of Paul Simon’s quote off “If you’re looking for a slick packaged product like a new soft drink, I’m not your candidate.”

Brad

I was Dennis Kucinich’s North Dakota Coordinator.

Just be yourself. Like the late Sen. Paul Simon said, “If you’re looking for a slick packaged product, I’m not your candidate.” You could use that quote at the debate maybe even in your closing statement.

To be less nervous, I recomend a couple things. Deep breaths about 8 times. Also, the visulization method. Close your eyes and picture in your mind what you want to happen at the debate. Also, I rccommend picturing winning the election over & over in your mind.

In terms of ?s, I think he may ask you a ? that may try to convince people that you’re out of the mainstream. You just need to show how a particular stand is mainstream.

I wish you the best. My new doctor is only a year younger than you!!

Brad

For instance, if you consider it to be like Viet Nam, why? Why not Korea?

He won’t ask that, of course, but I’m curious.

The comparison between how Judd Gregg voted and how Granny D would have voted is here: grannyd.org

If you want to contribute to help Granny D put TV ads on the air in New Hampshire during the next 12 days, go here:
http://grannyd.com/alerts/grannyd1.htm

Yours for a better America

I really admire what you are doing and what you stand for. There should be more politicians like you!
Thank you!

Your “adopted” grand-daughter here has never been so proud of you! I am sure you are going to wipe your opposition off the chart! You have the fine mind and the fine heart that is needed there – or anywhere, really. You will be fine. You are nearly a poet when you speak of our rights and our freedoms.

You have inspired me and many, many other Americans to keep trying to fix this mess. It will take all of us working as hard as we can to make a change. The fact that you never give up and never give in is sheer inspiration for those of us who struggle every day to go on under the oppression, to keep walking. You are the lamp that we follow. You are the wind in our sails. Don’t ever doubt what you mean to so many of us. We can never fully thank you. Thank you.

Will be watching with pride and knowing that you are the right person for any political position. President would be better.

Love always,

Aileen