There is literally no such thing as an idea that cannot be expressed well and articulately to today's voters in thirty seconds.

...nobody would think of asking the U.N. General Assembly what it thinks because it is dominated by nations with no power and less legitimacy

I probably had 150 meetings with Trent Lott. He has said exactly as many racist things to me as Bill Clinton has, which is to say zero.

The opposing party rarely causes so much angst as does one's own.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have one central idea in their uncluttered, ambitious minds: Hillary in 2008. Let Bush get re-elected, use the '04 primaries and general election to clean out the underbrush of competing Democratic candidates, and proceed unimpeded to the '08 nomination.

Any Democrat who squirms on the tax-cut issue in the primaries has no chance ' zero ' to win the nomination. Each will have to take the “pledge” to oppose the Bush tax cuts. Thus, Bush will have succeeded in creating a situation where anyone who can win the nomination can't win the election. Democrats are not about to nominate anyone who backs the tax cut, and Americans are not going to elect anyone who favors a tax increase.

Rebut the negative, and the opposing campaign has not merely lost a skirmish, it has suffered almost irreparable damage. An effective rebuttal makes it hard for the campaign whose ad is destroyed to be believed about anything ever again.