Drunkblogging Tonight’s GOP Debate in DC
Steve will stepping behind the bar momentarily.
4:48PM Since tonight’s debate is devoted to the deadly serious business of foreign policy, I’m hoping we get lots of questions where the candidates are asked to raise their hands if they’re sure.
4:50PM Dear CNN,
Want to know how to make your analysts appear more statesmanlike? Line them all up together on a bench like kindergartners in timeout.
Yours,
VodkaPundit.
4:53PM Must run upstairs for a minute. Forgot to take out my contacts on put on my glasses — and I don’t get to blink much for the next two hours.
4:57PM I love it when the CNN anchors use the phrase “balanced approach” like they didn’t crib it directly from the President’s most recent 1,103 needless press conferences.
4:59PM Speaking of all those needless press conferences, I’d like to apologize for all my complains during that year when Obama didn’t hold any press conferences.
4:59PM Playing the role of Gary Johnson in tonight’s debate, his foreign policy understudy, Ron Paul.
5:00PM Here we go…
5:00PM Wolf Blitzer sounds like he’s introing Wheel! Of! Fortune!
5:02PM What’s with the 24 introductions of tonight’s candidates?
5:03PM The following takes place between 8PM and 10PM.
5:03PM Seriously, Wolf — lay off the Wheel!
5:04PM Earlier, Jim Pethokoukis tweeted that he was getting on a helicopter for the event, on the AEI’s own helipad.
The fact that even the AEI has a helipad tells me there’s far too much money in Washington.
5:05PM Good suit, John Huntsman. And is Michele Bachmann wearing white this long after Labor Day? Somebody, please tell me that’s cream.
5:05PM Newt looks like Newt. I just wish I could pull off a yellow tie the way Cain does.
5:06PM Romney almost slouched his way up. If he wins, he might not age well as President.
5:06PM Better than Ron Paul, though, who might last a week.
5:07PM Wow — a plug for Jersey Boys from Wolf himself. Wonder what the spiff was for that.
5:07PM Only Mitt is singing along. Ron looks irritated.
But that’s not news, is it?
5:08PM Somebody needs to remind Santorum: “Never brown in town.” Black shoes in the big city, Mr. Candidate.
5:08PM Wolf: “I’ll try to guide the discussion.”
5:10PM Wolf: “I’ll be your moderator this evening.”
I’m going to seriously undertip him, just for that.
5:10PM The last couple debates spared us the candidate self-intros. I wish CNN had taken note.
5:10PM Perry is introducing his wife instead of himself.
5:11PM Mitt: “I’ve spent my life in the private sector.” Not for lack of trying, however. Also: First dig at Obama. Mitt ALWAYS gets the first dig at Obama. I respect that.
5:11PM Cain is trying desperately to forget those 53 seconds earlier this week.
5:12PM Newt: “Most important single topic — the survival of the United States.”
Dude. The US can be destroyed only from within.
5:13PM Huntsman: Also introducing his wife.
It’s a nice touch from both men, but Huntsman kept it more understated.
5:13PM Opening with a question from Ed Meese? I thought tonight was foreign policy, not anti-porn.
5:15PM Newt: I love the PATRIOT Act.
Sigh. We’re going to hear a lot of that tonight, except from Ron Paul.
5:15PM Newt wouldn’t change a thing in the PATRIOT Act.
Double sigh.
5:16PM Paul: “The PATRIOT Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty.”
5:17PM Newt: “Timothy McVeigh succeeded.” And he got applause for that.
5:17PM Romney looks on as if from above as Newt gets tangled up with Paul.
5:18PM Bachmann: “Today we deal with wireless functions.”
And I’m not even that drunk yet.
5:19PM Huntsman: Somewhere between Paul and Newt on the PATRIOT Act, and somewhere between Slim and None in the polls.
5:20PM This debate feels so very 2004.
5:21PM And I wasn’t –beleive it or not — being a smartass with that last remark. This is a 2004 debate in a 2012 election, where the greatest threat to our liberty and our lives lies in Washington, and not in some cave in Afghanistan.
5:21PM Mitt’s quoting a lot of Declaration of Independence and Constitution tonight. Going for that Tea Party vote.
5:22PM Perry: “Privatise the TSA as soon as I could and get rid of those unions.”
Now there’s an answer for 2012.
5:23PM Back to Santorum… and I appreciate CNN’s attempt to give all the candidates equal time. But first, they should start by dropping two or three candidates from the show.
5:24PM Santorum: “Abraham Lincoln ran right over civil rights.”
This isn’t the Party of Lincoln you’re looking for.
5:24PM Santorum also wants to take a closer look “at younger males.”
EWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
5:26PM Paul: They’re “suspects.”
The rest of the field is too gung-ho to make it war on our own soil. Paul goes too far the other way. And our laws our totally inadequate for either case.
5:26PM Cain: “I beleive we can do a whole lot better” on the PATRIOT Act. He’d… privatize it. Huh?
5:27PM Cain just got Wolf Blitzer’s name wrong. There’s a gay porn joke here that I’m not going to make.
5:28PM Next question: Can we wage a drone war in Pakistan to beat al Qaeda?
5:29PM Huntsman: “Term limits!” We’ll blind them with our shining lights! Which is not a line I cribbed from Reagan!
5:29PM Huntsman would wage a drone war against Pakistan.
5:30PM To Bachmann: Would you cut off Pakistan from aid?
5:30PM Bachmann: I know many specifics about Pakistan, some of them quite specifically.
5:32PM Bachmann: Pakistan is “too nuclear to fail.” That’s a great line.
5:32PM Perry: Pakistan is not too nuclear to fail. He wouldn’t send them “one penny.”
5:33PM Tonight’s beverage: E&J Brandy over ice with a splash of club soda. I fell in love with these over the summer, and I’m happy to report the love is totally requited.
5:34PM Perry: Would have a free trade zone in South Asia or something.
5:35PM Romney: “We can’t just write off a major part of the world… we can’t just say goodbye.”
5:36PM Romney is selling a sort of Afghanistanization of the Afghan war effort, much like Nixon did Vietnamization of South Vietnam. The difference is, there was such a thing as Vietnam. Afghanistan is just a place on the map.
5:37PM Huntsman: Nation-building begins at home.
5:38PM Romney: “Are you suggesting, governor, that we… ”
And now Huntsman is schooling Romney. Romney looks sullen, mostly because he just made his first big tactical error of these many debates.
5:38PM Romney is recovering nicely, but he lost stature here, and he won’t gain it back tonight without something pretty stellar.
5:41PM Newt: “Is this like a 30 second response? I’m happy to play by the rules if I know what they are.”
That last bit is always the tough part, huh, Newt?
5:41PM Newt: “You do it for real and you do it intensely.” That’s a CINC right there.
5:42PM Santorum: “I agree with Ron Paul.”
Not really.
5:43PM Commercial break, just as my cocktail needs refilling. Coincidence, or sign of a higher power with a grand design?
5:47PM Wolf just asked for a question from the audience and got nothing. Now somebody somewhere is wrestling with a mic while the candidates look embarrassed.
5:48PM Q: Would you help Israel knock our Iran’s nuclear program?
5:48PM Cain: I would first make sure the Israelis had, at a bare minimum, three nines.
5:49PM Cain: Wants Israel to have an exit strategy. Or something.
5:49PM Paul: The Israelis are on their own.
5:49PM Well, Ron, usually, yeah.
5:50PM Paul: “Israel has 200, 300 nuclear missiles.”
No. They have that many warheads (we think, estimated.) They have nothing like 200 nuclear-tipped missiles.
5:52PM Q: “Iran is probably less than a year away” from nukes. Is there any sanction that would stop them?
5:52PM Perry: Would sanction the Iranian central bank. “That will shut down that economy.”
5:53PM Of course, sending somebody back to the 18th Century isn’t that big a deal when they’re barely into the 19th and are trying to get back to the 14th.
5:54PM Remarkable lack of attacks on Obama tonight, I’m guessing because his foreign policy has morphed into Bush 44 almost from the start.
5:55PM Newt: We need strategery. He also thinks we could topple Iran in a year by strangling them economically.
5:55PM Bachmann: “I agree with all of that.”
5:56PM Ahem, Mrs Bachmann. Obama didn’t cancel the XL pipeline. He punted on it. That’s arguably worse, and ought to be called on it, rather than getting the facts wrong.
Of course, the above more generally is exactly why Bachmann fell out of the front rank in short order.
5:57PM Paul Wolfowitz asks: What about all those cool things Bush 43 did with foreign aid, would you keep doing those?
5:58PM Santorum: I can’t beleive this late in the game I’m still having to listen to Rick Santorum.
Sorry — that’s what I said, not Santorum.
6:00PM Romney: “Stop the idea of ObamaCare,” to protect the military.
6:01PM Paul: “They’re not cutting anything out of anything,” and Mitt rolled his eyes at that. And that is why Mitt will never warm the hearts of the Tea Party.
6:02PM Mitt: “There’s no price that is worth an Iranian nuclear weapon… my first trip as President will be to Israel.”
6:03PM Q: Would you be willing to say that nat’l security that defense budget cuts are unacceptable?
6:03PM Newt: No! There are cuts to be made.
6:04PM Newt: “That’s what we would do if we were a serious country.”
So much to like about Newt, and then he goes on to say he’d expose government to Six Sigma or something. As if government responds to that sort of thing.
6:04PM Q: Would you bomb Iran?
6:05PM Newt: Last rest only. Pursue regime change first and foremost.
6:05PM Huntsman: “let’s face the deficit reality.”
6:07PM “Let me bring in Governor Perry to this conversation…” Well that says more than was intended.
6:08PM Perry: “I don’t think anybody is surprised that the supercommittee failed.”
6:10PM Perry: “I’d have been working day in and day out” with Congress to produce a budget.
6:10PM That should have been an applause line. He got squat.
6:11PM Santorum: It’s not just the brandy, I swear, but I have no idea what he’s saying. I’m assuming he does.
6:12PM Rick Santorum has a record of “bipartisan accomplishment.” Such as when both sides in Pennsylvania rose up to throw him out of the Senate.
6:13PM Newt is winning this debate by virtue of being the first challenger to Mitt who didn’t throw it all away in his very next debate appearance.
6:15PM Bachmann: Exists on the same plane as Santorum and Huntsman, as far as I’m concerned. Each represents a different wing of the GOP — Tea Party, Social Cons, and None, respectively — and each is going nowhere fast.
6:15PM Newt smiled when Bachmann said “This isn’t Monopoly money” that we’re sending to China.
6:16PM Commercial break!
6:19PM Commerical Break: Men’s Wearhouse, for when you want to represent liberal causes, and look bad doing it.
6:22PM Here we go again…
6:22PM Wolf: “name and the town you’re from.”
6:23PM Now it’s time to talk about who wants to most militarize our southern border.
6:24PM Perry: “I think it’s time for a 21st Century Monroe Doctrine.”
Lefty history teachers everywhere — which is all of them — all just left skidmarks.
6:24PM Damn, but Perry knows how to wear a suit.
6:25PM Paul: The drug war “is another war we ought to cancel.”
Amen. Let’s just call it a draw and back away.
6:26PM Paul: “I think the federal war on drugs is a total failure.”
6:27PM Paul: “Beleive me, the kids can still get the drugs.”
6:27PM Cain: “The answer is yes.” The question was: What is the capital of Belize?
6:28PM Nick Shulz is asking a question! He still owes me $600 for stuff I wrote for TCS!
6:29PM Santorum: Bad stuff is bad, mmkay? Made in America is good. Mmm.
6:30PM Then again, Santorum’s plan only has four points. Mitt’s has 57, or one for each hair he’s had out of place this month.
6:31PM Newt: Citizenship for math majors. And… maybe history geeks?
6:32PM Newt would introduce… selective service for immigrants?
6:32PM You forget sometimes what a big government conservative Newt is, but then he wonks out.
6:32PM Bachmann: I’m against stuff.
6:33PM Michele Bachmann quoting Steve Jobs is like me quoting Bill W.
6:34PM I’m glad to see Newt — or anyone — defending even just bits of the DREAM Act. GOP obstruction on this one will come back to haunt them.
6:35PM Mitt: “Amnesty is a magnet.” And RomneyCare is a repulsor beam!
6:36PM Mitt: “This is a party that loves legal immigration.” Nice to hear that tonight.
6:38PM Perry: I’m with Mitt! Mitt’s with me! We agree!
Not the worst moment of the night, but still cringeworthy.
6:39PM Romney: Perry might stand with me, but I don’t stand with Perry.
6:40PM Break time. And I need this like you wouldn’t beleive.
6:43PM I do not need a TV ad reminding me I’m getting older. Beleive me.
6:44PM Syria!
6:45PM This guy from Heritage just called Iraq “a friendly country.” Where’s he been?
6:45PM Cain would not support a no-fly zone over Syria, but he would bravely consult with our allies.
That’s unilateral consultations, if you weren’t sure.
6:46PM Perry just called a no-fly zone “a sanction.”
6:47PM Huntsman: “We missed the Persian spring; the President failed on that front.”
6:49PM Huntsman: Man, but I love the Jews!
6:50PM Paul: “You have to understand who the al Qaeda really is.” Hipster.
6:51PM Wow, Paul is sounding like he belongs on the front lines of OWS right now — even if you agree with what he’s saying.
You know why Syria doesn’t impose a no-fly zone on us? Because of the muthersomething US Air Force is why, you doddering fool.
6:52PM Mitt: “I beleive we need to have an American century.”
We had one. Another would be nice.
6:53PM Perry: “If we’re going to be serious about saving Israel…”
A lot of Israelis just got a belly laugh at the governor’s expense.
6:54PM Santorum: “We need to build a solid hemisphere.” No sinkholes in the Western world!
6:56PM Mitt: “Long term security interest is China.”
6:57PM Mitt is doing a nice job of trying not to alienate Hispanic voters. But this isn’t a friendly format. Or election.
6:58PM Bachmann: “The threat has come home.”
6:58PM Huntsman: “Our biggest problem is right here at home… joblessness.”
6:59PM And that’s it. Final thoughts, assuming I have any, in just a moment.
7:06PM Was there substance? Sure. Plenty of trivialities, too. But this debate seemed to do little more than reinforce the fact that President Obama is the CINC, and none of these people on stage are even close to being CINC. As a blogger who got his start during the War on Terror, I can tell you: There isn’t much unimpressive than an armchair general.
That’s why these candidates have got to agree to fewer debates, and to zero single-issue debates. Presidents don’t deal with one issue at a time. Neither should serious candidates. All these single-issue debates accomplish is to reduce the stature of anyone running against an incumbent President.
I understand the appeal when Heritage and AEI make the offer and CNN supplies the bandwidth. But I get the feeling that CNN understands the real stakes (just described), while Heritage/AEI/Candidates don’t seem to understand anything beyond the surface level of, “Oh, a foreign policy debate! People LOVE us on foreign policy!”
No, in serious times, serious people love serious people. And there wasn’t much seriousness to be seen tonight.
We need lots of debates. But they ought to be restricted to candidates which something of a chance, and hosted by people (and broadcasted by people) with a seriousness worthy of our times.
Did you see any of that tonight? Because I didn’t.
Off to a good start.
;-D
I assume my martini is up to snuff for this
Just one, Jazz?
Its the Dollar Store 1 gal. special snifter.
Too bad the fish got evicted from it, but the cause is good.
Checked in!
I usually haft do this several times before it finally works. : ) Checking in!
A huge pet peeve of mine is when they announce who is singing the national anthem and then add on “Tony Award Winner” or “Platinum Artist” or something like that. Annoys the frig out of me.
What infuriates me is when some narcissistic diva “styles” the national anthem by jazzing it up, adding extra notes, squealing, and so forth. Hey, idiot, the song is not about YOU! Just sing it the way it was written, or sit down, shut up, and let the audience do the singing.
It’s white, but at least she has on black shoes, thank God!
Way too many people on this stage. Honestly, why the heck are Santorum and Huntsman there?
Um…
To see if the media talking heads can shift the polls again with various red herring and gotcha questions.
Gonna skip this one. Just spent the last 12.5 hours driving.
– VodkaPundit, but this is getting depressing — I need a drink!
Cain is not capable of giving a straight answer on most issues of importance other than 9-9-9
Santorum wants to look at “younger males”? What is in the water in Pa.? Fracking fluids? Gen. Ripper, what say you?
We need to be looking at MUSLIMS and at people with Muslim sympathies and connections. And they can be any age or sex.
Who’s that one guy?
That’s what she said…..
Absolut? Brother, you drink some bad vodka. Try Chopin, or Luksusowa, if you’re on a budget.
Huntsman has impressed me . . . with how hot his daughters are. If he will lay out a plan for what sort of photo shoots he has in mind for them I could consider giving him my support. Otherwise, it’s time for him to quit showing up at these debates.
They’re undoubtedly the best thing to happen to politics since the Gore Girls.
As the camera panned across the back of the candidates it appears that some of the podium pads have been, shall we say, height normalized, eh wot? And I’m surprised that CNN’s stream doesn’t insert their own commercials when they take a break. Methinks someone oops’d a marketing opportunity.
One of my worst hangovers was from EJ (Easy Jesus) back in my ’20′s, be careful
And is Michele Bachmann wearing white this long after Labor Day?
So what’s the type of alcohol tonight? Appletinis?
Don’t you know you’re not supposed to wear white after labor day? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_kd3afA1oo&feature=related
That 200-300 “warhead” is just a little pedantic? What are they going to do, attach them to goats? I don’t believe Israel has any long range bombers, so they probably all are on missiles of some kind, most probably on submarines…
Not pedantic at all. Most of Israel’s nuke must be delivered by F-16 or F-15. It’s not just pushing a button. They need to have working airfields, able pilots, and enough escort fighters and e-warfare planes to get the nukes through.
Israel does have three subs capable of delivering nuclear cruise missiles, but like jets, cruise missiles can be shot down.
Probably not, most likely on “guided” gravity bombs.
New Drinking Game. Every time Cain says “depends” or “maybe” DRINK!
We finally get some decent moderators and it’s another foreign policy debate, which only 25% of the population cares about. How about good mods and a debt reduction debate? As long as we are debating things few care about anyway…
I think the candidates should one on one debate with Democrats. That would be interesting. I mean, these guys are all from the same party, how much can they disagree? I want blood, not this pussyfooting around.
“5:12PM Newt: “Most important single topic — the survival of the United States.”
Dude. The US can be destroyed only from within.”
So true; of course, that’s a major theme of the “Visit with Mr. Lincoln” exhibit at Disneyland, too. And Obama is certainly proving this point – he had to become president to do as much damage as he has ALREADY done, and he’s trying his damnedest to do even worse.
“5:58PM Santorum: I can’t beleive this late in the game I’m still having to listen to Rick Santorum.”
-VodkaPundit for the win. You so nailed it.
Yes, Santorum just referred to the country of Africa…..
Isn’t that right next to Asia? (aka Hawaii?)
Bachmann: ‘My voice said this…’ Must. Step. Away….
Trying to figure out whether I’ve got the aquarium channel or the debate.
Am I the only one who was waiting on pins and needles as Cain got to the third one of that list and was just waiting for the next major flub?
Not by a longshot, I’d wager.
I enjoy how the softest stance on immigration and on drugs have been the biggest applause lines on those issues.
There might just be hope for the Grand Old Party.
One thing that I believe that the Rs are stupid about.
leftists as Republican primary moderators
They do have a spread, ‘tho. From the far Left (on the right), to the extreme Flaming Left in the middle, and the Plasma class Left on the left. Moderating a debate to convince the Republican voters who they should vote for.
Sort of like Rev Billy Graham debating appropriate biblical doctrine with Pope Benedict XVI using Richard Dawson as a moderator.
Or Thomas Jefferson debating John Adams, with Karl Marx moderating.
Look, during a party primary, the moderator should fall into one of two categories.
1) be unable to tell beliefs or affiliations by listening to them (they are fair and their beliefs do not steer the discussion).
2) their beliefs fall within the range of beliefs of the Party they are moderating the debate for. note, if this is the case, care should be taken to have a range of category two moderators to avoid “stampeding” the viewing audience in the direction the moderator prefers.
I don’t think they would let Dick Morris, Dana Loesch, and Andrew Breitbart moderate a Democratic Presidential Primary debate, so why should the obverse be done?
YVMV
Foreign math students is actually one of the worst things you can do for this country. Because they teach.
When I was in college, everyone would pick their math teachers based on their last name, because getting someone that barely speaks English teaching a difficult subject like differential equations.
People wonder why American students are bad at math? They can’t understand their teachers.
My 2 greatest classes at UT Austin perhaps were a Calculus class with an old professor, Dr. Wall, and a graduate student teaching differential equations, a Mr. Mahmoud as I recall. He made the most striking statement I have ever heard: ‘We know so little in comparison to what there is to be known.’ I learned differential equations well enough to get a visiting editor to publish ‘maximizing the sensitivity of a radioimmunoassay at a specified dose’ which, perhaps like a Mr. Casaubon in a George Eliot novel, I think could be used to dose antibody treatment in cancer patients.
One of the best debates I’ve seen thus far.
The drunkblogging comments, on the other hand, are just pathetically stupid. My eyes bleed just trying to read them.
And yet, you stuck around. With a veritable plethora of options available to you, you’re still here. Go figure.
Quiet night for Newt. A few good moments, but Blitz didn’t give much of a chance. Overall, I think all of the candidates did great except Paul and Cain. Paul is a bit too nationalistic. Cain is too scripted. All of the others are credible. Wait, all except Huntsman…..that guy might as well be a CNN correspondent.
I was actually very impressed with Huntsman this time! He managed to get it right on everything (including Afghanistan and Syria) and expressed himself flawlessly to boot.
Regarding Steve’s comment about Lefty history teachers: Yes, a huge majority are lefties, but not all of us! I am a very conservative history professor (Ph.D. Purdue University 2009). I do know a handful like me and one or two of the Ron Paul variety.
Tyler J – hang in there amigo. Keep on keeping on.
S Green – as a 3 yr+ paying PJ subscriber, I love you guys. I really do. I have a real connection. I ask that you and the rest of the PJ line-up to stop being Ron Paul hating pussies. Get some sack and back up anyone who supports the Constitution you bastards! You say you support small govt but when a guy comes along and takes up the charge, you start dissing the guy who’s goal’s you claim to support. WTF?
I know one major Conservative history teacher, both high school and college. A doctor with a good grasp of real history, he also presents programs outside the academic setting using Power Point along with his narrative. Much good!
Most important question of the night: I just moved to Monument; where do you buy your liquor? (Something closer than Applejack I hope.)
P.S. Greatly enjoyed tonight’s comments.
E&J Brandy on the rocks…. Ouch!
How *anyone* can drink that swill is beyond me. You may know your Martinis, but brandy? Eh, not so much.
(I’ve never understood how a state – California – that makes such nice wines can produce nothing but *nasty* brandy.)
There are dozens of brandies from Mexico, Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, and other countries that A) cost less, and B) are far superior to E&J.
And on the rocks? Again – Ouch.
Dude, get a nice brandy, put it in a snifter that has held hot water in it for five minutes, grab a quality cigar, and retire to your patio for a worthwhile 30 minutes…
Wow, I’m going through some really good George Dickel 12, and you guys still make more sense than Santorum [I actually kinda like him] did at one point.
Cain has been marginalized. Paul is an anti-Semite. Romney is holding. Bachman and Newt are on the rise. Here is the outcome as of now with me two sheets to the wind and with a snoring dogue de bourdeaux in my recliner:
Romney – p
Bachmann – vp
Newt – sect of state
Huntsman – amb to china
How did we reach the point where not borrowing money from China to give to Israel = anti-semitism? I completely support Israel’s right to defend itself, and to keep the land they seized when attacked. But why is it automatic that American taxpayers have to donate money to Israel every year? They have a much smaller national debt that we do; let them borrow for themselves.
The evidence for Paul’s antisemtism is circumstantial but considerable. He focuses way too much on aid to Israel, which is a miniscule percentage of all foreign aid, even if one doesn’t include the cost of America’s NATO commitments. He’s terribly concerned with the “rights” of terrorists. He made pro-Hamas statements during the Gaza “flotilla” incident, implying, quite apart from the issue of American aid, that Israel should not defend itself. The intellectual circles in which Ron Paul moved, including his association with Llewellyn Rockwell, were suffused with the anti-American and antisemitic atmosphere of the far-left and far-right. Of course, none of this proves outright that he’s antisemitic. But what’s the difference anyway, given his terrible policies?
I guess it makes a difference to those of us who think suspending the Bill Of Rights, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on occupying foreign countries, is dubious during a short war and suicidal during a war which even its proponents admit will last decades. We’ll lose our freedom and go bankrupt, plain and simple.
The the other candidates, besides Huntsman, think the executive branch may: imprison, torture and kill, without trial, anyone he labels a terrorist; invade foreign countries without consulting Congress, let alone declaring war; and spy on Americans without a warrant, and prosecute them (usually for ordinary crimes) with the gathered information. So we’re almost electing emperors. That’s a deal-breaker for me, because we’re eventually bound to get a bad emperor.
So plenty of what Paul says makes sense to me, though his approach to nuclear proliferation seems naive.
In this debate, anyway, I didn’t hear a hint of anti-semitism. When asked about Israel, he answered about Israel. When asked about foreign aid in general, he didn’t mention Israel at all. Policy-wise, treating Israel like everyone else is not anti-semitic. His past associations may have to do with other views he shares with the people you mentioned, such as a respect for limitations on domestic government.
One does not have to dig very deep to link Ron Paul’s attacks on the Fed as coming straight from Henry Ford, Sr in the 1920′s.
100% of US aid to Israel is military and part of a treaty issue dating back to the peace treaty with Egypt. There is a lot of debate within Israel as to whether the USA strings-attached are worth the military aid.
drunkblog: 6:53PM Perry: “If we’re going to be serious about saving Israel…”
“A lot of Israelis just got a belly laugh at the governor’s expense.”
Maybe Perry’s use of “saving” was not the best choice, but NO ONE on that stage has a more multi-dimensional understanding, commitment, and doing, in support of Israel than Gov. Perry. mostly on business & trade, but he really has the record. The others just mouth the words.
forgot this was a drunkblog. Surprised you did not give Bachmann credit for the best intro.
And, Romney always sings the Star Spangled Banner. or mouths the words – I figure they all have lapel mikes and do not want their singing voices hitting Youtube. This is the first time Santorum did not.
Not all History teachers are leftists. Some of us believe
in the truth. Mind you we are becoming an endangered species.
Perry: “If we’re going to be serious about saving Israel…”
Really? REALLY? I think Israel has done a pretty good job of saving its own bacon.
Good news, these debates have a tendency to deflate one’s hopes that grand Presidential saviors are for real. (See 2008 for the power of such illusions, and where that leads.) Kudos, Mr. Green, for doing right in bringing them all down to Earth. Brandy, yeah, well, who isn’t jealous of an incentive to put a heat on? That could get a lot of us yokels in trouble. That said, thank you much, this blog is kinda the only good and satisfying alternative to slogging through a viewing of the debate itself.
I tried drunk blogging the first 2008 presidential debate — instead I just got drunk. Made the whole thing tollerable.
I am worried though, as an expat, that I seem to get most of my US political news from Mr. Green’s drunk blogging.
I got a Wyborowa 1964 vodka, that’s from the once communist Poland!
Nice recap, VP. Raising a Hendricks & soda to you. DD
Well after watching last night’s Republican Party debate, I can tell you that there is no way in hell that I will ever support Newt “Amnesty/Dream Act” Gingrich. Indeed, I won’t support anyone, be they Republican or Dhimmicrat, that supports amnesty or any other backdoor pathways to citizenship. Thus, if Newt “Amnesty/Dream Act” Gingrich happens to win the Republican Party nomination, I will be staying home on super Tuesday, as I will not vote for and support anyone that supports amnesty for illegal immigrants because those loons are not really serious about ending illegal immigration once and for all, and also because I’m not interested in helping the Left to become more intrenched in the Republican Party than it already is. Furthermore, if it means that Barack Insane Obama gets reelected, then so be it.
I may have to kill myself after reading Yo Mama’s post. Maybe I can do it with vodka!!
Newt
Former Republican Speaker of the House Newton Leroy Gingrich lugs around almost as much baggage as a former candidate for the presidency lugged around before he won that office in 1992.
The chief difference between Gingrich and William Jefferson Blythe Clinton is that the former’s dirty linens will probably deny him the Republican nomination in 2012 and the latter’s less-fastidious Democrats elected him twice.
Both developments are damned shames.
Despite Democrat claims to be the Party of the People, which may have been true when they were led by FDR and the people were desperate and later involved in a war FDR manipulated, since at least 1964 the GOP has better reflected the dominant sentiment of Americans in all matters save failed social experiments.
Over the years, muddled-thinking wags have suggested that the best of all political worlds would see a Democrat in charge of domestic policy and a Republican conducting foreign affairs. Aside from the unconstitutionality of such a scenario, the country would be bankrupted by Democrats and so destitute we would be unable to function beyond our borders.
However, none of that speculation is relevant to a Newt Gingrich presidency since Republicans are more inclined to lose than to hold their noses and vote for a guy who isn’t perfect.
Newt is anything but perfect from a conservative point of view or from any other point of view, although he is nowhere near the insensitive ogre, the grinch the mainstream media has painted him . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=7138,)