Three debate points left hanging that need to be addressed.

In the first two debates and follow-on spin the Repubs made the following points which have gone unchallenged or unanswered directly by Kerry / Edwards:

Anaswers provided:

1. B/C take umbridge at calling our allies in Iraq, "the coalition of the bribed and the bullied." They hold the current allies out as true heroes in the war on terror. K/E have not answered this directly:

My answer: Yes, they were "bribed and bullied", and that description is accurate and important because the vast majority of the people in those "allied" countries do not support the war in Araq. These "allied" governments had to override the will of their own people, and many of them did so because they felt bullied and bribed by the Bush administration. Many of them are now reconsidering their involvement in Iraq and are withdrawing.

When one takes into consideration the will of the people in the nations of the world, we have no allies in Iraq, and that includes England and Australia. The will of the people in thoses countries is more important, in the long run, than the near term committments of their governments.

I feel it is important to restate our original assertion and defend it, rather than ignore the topic and retreat.

2. B/C make the point that K/E cannot win a war in which they do not believe. They both use the "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" quote to claim that the Dems cannot recruit allies to a "diversion". They also disparage the Kerry 4 point plan as a Bush echo.

Again, I would say, T this up by repeating the message, not retreating from it. Specifically say once again, "Yes, this was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time."

It was the wrong war because Saddam Hussein had no WMD, had no connection to 9/11, and posed no threat to America. It was the wrong place because the people who attacked us on 9-11 were from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, not from Iraq. It was the wrong time, because the IWR we voted to authorize had inspectors in place in Iraq who could have kept Hussein contained and confirmed everything we now know wabout the missing WMD in Iraq.

Emphasize the "new broom" aspect of dealing with the "mess in Iraq". We are there now, we must make the best of a bad situation, and the way to do that is with "fresh thinking" and a new team.

3. B/C deride the "Global test" argument made in the first debate. It has been refuted, but still stands, I believe. Here is some further ammunition for our side:

Kerry / EDwards should further assert the following: "George Bush set the bar too low to launch this nation's first war of aggression. There is a legitimate place for preemptive action, but I will set that bar higher. I will not not set the bar so high it endangers America, but I will set it high enough that American credibility will never again be a casualty of our own war."

The fact that "bar" needs to be set higher is both a truth and a summary of what has gone wrong, IMO.

Just thinking out loud. Hans