We better not lose our nerve .

Our leaders have staked out correct positions that are going to come under vicious assault in the coming days. Democratic support for a timetable to get out of Iraq, opposition to the Patriot Act and demanding a full scale probe of warrantless eavesdropping are all going to be mischaracterized and lied about as the fear mongers question our Americanism.
Democrats need to develop a clear set of talking points on each of the issues and stick as close to them as possible. We need to be careful about giving these thugs ammunition by making overly inflammatory remarks. And we need to avoid our tendency to shoot our own wounded. A favorite tactic of these slime balls is to take fringe statements made by our folks and invite the rest of our crew to disavow them Too often we have taken the bait and dumped on our allies. When that happens we undermine our arguments and look weak to the rest of the country.
These guys know that they have been caught in illegal activities. They know they are in jeopardy. Expect them to be merciless and dishonest in their arguments. We should remember that we have the moral high ground on this and that we are committed to defending our national security . To lose the upcoming battles may move the country irretrievably toward fascism. The stakes are to high for us not to prevail

John Lewis, John Conyers, John Murtha, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Russ Feingold, Robert Byrd we lift our eyes to you. Stand up and lead us forward.

bUSH* IS NOT AMERICA!

though the sentiment is correct. One of the things that discourages me is how weak the party spokespeople seem to be. One of the things I like about Dean is that he is clear in his message since he doesn't engage in convoluted sentence structure. We have such a grasp of the complexities of every situation that we fail to be concise. And we are losing average voters because of it.