A very basic strategy — if your enemies know where you are, then don't be there.
Everyone has an agenda. Sometimes it's conscious, sometimes it's not, but it's always there.
Here's how you win the debate. You don't make it personal. You do not make it about you. That is what they want, and if you give it to them, you will lose.
Except they had never had a fight. Not in the sense meant by people paid to fight or die. Pushing and shoving at the schoolyard gate or on the sidewalk outside the soda shop or late at night after a start-of-summer keg party was as far from fighting as two fat guys tossing lame spirals in the park were from the Superbowl.
[Burr] Your Excellency, sir
[Washington] Who are you?
[Burr] Aaron Burr, sir
Permission to state my case?
[Washington] As you were...
[Burr] Sir, I was a captain under General Montgomery
Until he caught a bullet in the neck in Quebec, and well, in summary
I think that I could be of some assistance
I admire how you keep firing on the British
From a distance
[Washington] Huh
[Burr] I have some questions, a couple of suggestions
On how to fight instead of fleeing west
[Washington] Yes?
[Burr] Well —
[Hamilton] Your Excellency? You wanted to see me?
[Washington] Hamilton, come in. Have you met Burr?
[Hamilton] Yes, sir
[Hamilton & Burr] We keep meeting...
[Burr] As I was saying, sir
I look forward to seeing your strategy play out—
[Washington] Burr?
[Burr] Sir?