Debate Camp and Political Judo

While I want to return to the question of how identification is working
in the election so far, the recent pronouncements of a "tougher" Obama
campaign and E. J. Dionne's op ed in the Washington Post have made me
nostalgic for debate camp.

The Professor was once a damn good policy debater. From that experience
I learned something that the Obama campaign is having trouble with:
Offense wins championships.

An offensive argument (as in a football teams "offensive line" not
"offensive smell") is one that scores points, preferably in a way that
highlights your other strong arguments. A defensive argument simply
minimizes or neutralizes your opponents' arguments. Defense doesn't win
rounds, and a good debater's mantra is "offense offense offense."

The Obama campaign has been saying that McCain doesn't have any ideas.
This is defensive and technically incorrect. Dionne is right, the
McCain camp has ideas, but these ideas are terrible. Now, McCain has
gone on the offensive, albeit dishonestly, and a response that just
takes umbrage or attempts to neutralize the argument only is not
aggressive enough. Don't just say they don't have any ideas, say that
what ideas they have are BAD. You don't have to get dirty to get tough, just stick your damn punch instead of pulling it. Make your responses hurt. Turn
the argument back at them. Offense offense offense (or like Begala says
"Attack attack attack").

This means even turning your responses to their comments into shots that hurt, and thereby makes their attacks turn into liabilities--political Judo. Some examples:

RE: Palin's hawkishness: Not only do they want a state of perpetual
war, their economic plan will ensure that the middle class pays for all
of it.

RE: lipstick: We were wrong. Calling John McCain's policy of giving tax
breaks to the rich while the middle class loses their homes a pig is an
insult to pigs.

RE sex ed: Of course McCain is lying about our record. In 25 years, the closest he's
come to dealing with education policy is suggesting that
we abolish the Department of Education.

RE energy: Every time they hear the phrase "drill, baby drill" Middle
Eastern oil barons breathe a sigh of relief. They hear the voice of an
America that's still addicted to oil and is desperate for another
fix--and John McCain's energy policy of subsidizing Big Oil is music to
their ears.

RE any stupid sniping on the stump from McCain and Palin: They can dish
it out, but they can't take it. Besides, when you can't talk about
helping the middle class, expanding health care coverage or creating
new green-collar jobs, you have to fill up the speechtime somehow.

RE change: A health care policy that results in more Americans losing
their coverage is technically change. An energy policy that gives more
sweetheart deals to oil companies is change. A foreign policy that
threatens a new Cold War with Russia is change. A tax policy that gives
bigger breaks to the wealthiest Americans is change. It's change for
the worse.

Well, the coach has given her pep-talk, now get in there and win this
damn thing. Oh, and given the excitement about the Bush Doctrine and
the mechanics of preemptive strikes, might I suggest the edited volume "Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy" by Gordon Mitchell and Bill Keller (the Professor is neither of these people). Some praise:

"Thomas L. Hughes, former assistant secretary of state for intelligence
and research, praised the book by saying it “breaks new ground in
exposing political and semantic manipulations on the road to war in
Iraq, the dumbing down of threat ‘imminence’, and success in
controlling the public case for war. Iran’s new prominence as a
possible target for American–Israeli first strikes makes all this
particularly prescient and timely.”