Bush revamps fighting terrorism message

[rodeodance]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060824/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_fighting_them_here

Bush revamps fighting terrorism message

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 24, 11:23 AM ET

WASHINGTON - In the thick of an election campaign,
President Bush has revived and retooled his argument that the U.S. must fight terrorists overseas or face them here. Despite the unpopularity of the
Iraq war, some GOP candidates are borrowing Bush's line.


"We leave before the mission is done, the terrorists will follow us here," Bush warned at a news conference this week.

Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., locked in a tight Philadelphia-area re-election race, went a step further. "We either fight them there, or we fight them in the supermarkets and streets here," he said Wednesday in an interview with CNN.

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The fight-them-there theme has been part of Bush's national security stump speech since 2003. But the "follow us here" part is a relatively new twist.

Noting polls that show growing Iraq war opposition, Bush and other Republicans have been stressing links between Iraq and the broader war against terrorism — a connection Democrats generally dismiss.

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