Unlike Fox News, where the Ugly Americans known as the Republican Presidential Candidates were having what they call a debate, but which really is Answering Questions by Sound Bite.
Fortunately, Michael Scherer of Salon watched so I didn't have to, and provided the lowlights:
0 minutes. Fox News opens its debate by introducing each of the 10 GOP presidential candidates with an info-graphic. But there is only so much space on the screen, so choices must be made. For instance, next to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the graphic mentions his wife and kids, but does not mention the fact that his kids don't like his wife, or him. Next to John McCain it says "Episcopalian." Next to Texas Rep. Ron Paul it says "Protestant." Next to Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney it says "Mormon." That's right. Mormon.
1 minute. Host Brit Hume says all the candidates have expressed condolences over the passing of Jerry Falwell. So now no one has to talk about him.
10 minutes. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is asked a tough question. "You said that you wanted to find a way for Republicans and Democrats to work together," asks Fox's Chris Wallace. "Is that any way to fight and win a war, to look for consensus among the politicians in Washington?" Brownback does the only reasonable thing, attack Democrats. "I condemn the statements of Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate, saying we've already lost," says Brownback, assuring GOP voters that he is, in fact, not very bipartisan after all.
[snip]
22 minutes. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will not let McCain be the funniest guy in the room. "We've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop," he says. The crowd loves it. The laughter is louder. Huckabee wins the joke contest
Ah, the "girlie-man" joke. Boy, Republicans sure are insecure about their own manhood, aren't they? And hey, nice "do unto others" from the Baptist minister Mike Huckabee. Because after all, Jesus would beat a well-groomed guy like John Edwards into the ground and then steal his lunch money, right? Isn't that one of the teachings of Jesus? Like, right up there with throwing the moneychangers out of the temple? Hey, Mike, why not just come out of the closet. You might like it out in the open. Of course cockroaches like you tend to just skitter back into the darkness once exposed.
Faux-macho Republicans who talk about John Edwards and his hair always remind me of that old Bob Goldthwait bit about the gay-bashing guy, the one who continues to beat the guy he thinks is gay while spouting vitriol about how he's beating him because he's queer -- and then slips in "...and I'm kind of attracted to you and...."
38 minutes. Wallace turns the questions to Giuliani, unleashes the rhetorical equivalent of a Gatling-gun blast. "You're pro-choice, you're pro-gay rights, you're pro-gun control. You supported Mario Cuomo for governor over a Republican. Are those the stands of a conservative?" Giuliani takes the question in stride, and does the only logical thing. He attacks Hillary Clinton. "We're looking at a race here in which the leading Democratic candidate for president of the United States has said that the unfettered free market is the most disastrous thing in modern America." Can that be true? It doesn't really matter. This is a Republican crowd. If Giuliani claimed Clinton was born on the planet Zorg, no one would bat an eye.
I really wish Hillary Clinton would do something that would make me believe that she's going to be a warrior for progressive values. Because I really want to be able to defend her from crap like this. Unfortunately, as of yet, I can't. Because she is 100% corporatist, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
53 minutes. Tancredo gets a question about whether the other candidates are soft on immigration. This is his issue. He is ready to answer. But just as he does, something goes wrong with one of the Fox cameras. The screen gets a red haze over it. With his pasty face, the red light makes Tancredo look for a moment like Satan. Then the camera cuts away.
[snip]
64 minutes. Giuliani suddenly springs to life, staking out his turf as censor-in-chief. He interrupts [Ron] Paul, who has been explaining that al-Qaida attacked New York and Washington in part because U.S. military forces were based in the Middle East. "That's really an extraordinary statement," Giuliani interrupts. "That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq." The crowd loves it, starts applauding. "I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that." Paul does no such thing.
Chapter 12: In Which Rudy Giuliani Proves That He Is An Idiot. U.S. forces weren't based in Iraq at the time, they were based in Saudi Arabia. But what are facts when weighed against a chance to remind everyone (as if he had been allowing people to forget for the past five and a half years) that HE was THERE on 9/11.
Now for some good, Republican porn:
74 minutes. We're back. "The questions in this round will be premised on a fiction," says Hume. No news there. Hume wants to do a role-playing game. Three shopping centers near American cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attacker is apprehended and may have information about more attacks to come. The question goes to McCain. "How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?"
I kind of wish I'd seen that part. I'd have liked to have seen Brit Hume panting and sweating, his hard-on discreetly hidden behind the podium, at the very THOUGHT of shopping malls lying in ruins at the hands of Islamic boogeymen.
75 minutes. McCain answers emotionally, convincingly. "We do not torture people. When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us as we underwent torture ourselves is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them."
76 minutes. Giuliani tries to appear tougher than McCain. "I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. Shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of." It's unclear what he means, but it sounds a lot like torture. The crowd likes it. Applause.
77 minutes. Now Romney tries to appear tougher than McCain. "I don't want them on our soil. I want them in Guantanamo where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons. I want them there," he says. "Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo." More applause. Habeas corpus sucks!
Wow! A real-live Two Minutes Hate. George Orwell would be SO proud of this bunch.
You should also read Digby's account.
It's hard to imagine anyone taking all this seriously beyond the tough-talking mouth-breathers who are sitting out there in the flyover states and the bowels of the Confederacy, peeing in their pants with fear that any minute now, planeloads of swarthy guys in turbans are going to fly a plane into the local Wal-Mart.
Jon Swift is right, except I'll take it a step further. When ANY of these guys becomes president, every day will be 9/11.
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