Senator Reid,
With all due respect, I observed your performance in your interview yesterday with Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room and, well sir, you fumbled big time.
While you appeared nimble enough to tap-dance your way through Wolf's test-marketed line of questioning on immigration, you choked-up and swatted foul ball after foul ball when it came down to the inevitable: "do you support Feingold's censure" and "do you support the `Terrorist Surveillance Program'" line of questioning.
Here's a suggestion from a viewer: When someone tries to make you play defense, turn the tables, play offense.
Perhaps write this down and pin it to your bedstand so that is becomes the first and last thing you read everyday:
*DO NOT GET SUCKED INTO DEFENSIVE POSITIONS*
Let me highlight the example from the Situation Room yesterday:
When Wolf pulls out the GOP script and asks if you can support the laughably-coined `terrorist surveillance program,' you should run as far away from what I heard last night which was: "well yes we support spying on terrorists but we believe we should be doing it legally."
The way that appears to a viewer is that you're partially acknowledging the program as it is conveyed without having the chance to acknowledge the real concerns, concerns that have less to do with illegality and everything to do with ABUSES that can be readily perpetrated as a RESULT of the program's illegality.
From my perspective, I think you would be far better served assuming an offensive posture by tossing the question back to the questioner (in this case Wolf). For instance, you might first speculate out loud that we cannot be sure Bush is not spying on fellow Americans (to the contrary, he has in fact given us every reason to believe otherwise)and then follow-up by asking Wolf directly to speculate along with you, using him, and yourself, and everyone watching his program as examples of potential targets of abuse. Wolf, feeling targeted, will be forced to recognize that that possibility cannot be ruled out (because, HEY, there's no god d*mn oversight). Force the point home by talking about how the public's trust in this administration has been so greatly eroded that neither you nor him, nor anyone, can be certain that our private email is not being read, that our mail is not being opened, that our phone conversations are not being listened to, or even that our homes are not being searched. Personalize it for all of us! Bring it into our own homes and our own telephone lines. Make US feel vulnerable.
To me, it seems like such an effective way to turn the tables. Yet, true to form, democrats wilt under the glare of the Klieg lights, unable to play any position but defense.
I admit I am no communications strategist, but I can tell you, you are doing a superb a job playing into Rove's hands by assuming any kind of defensive role.
Thank you for listening.