Currently Reading The Color of Magic By Terry Pratchett see related

We open with a short video commemorating Latter Day conservative Saint Ronald of Reagan, whose Presidential Library is the setting for the debate.  Moderator Chris Matthews comes out, introduces Nancy Reagan and the Governator (who earlier made waaaaaay too big a show of walking her to her seat), and introduces the candidates (wingnut, douche, douche nozzle, douche bag, fatcat, skeeze, whackjob, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, slimeball, and ass).   Matthews lays the ground rules, which eliminate opening and closing statements and thanking the hosts, puts time limits on responses – with a penalty of steadily increasing electrical shocks – and gets straight to it. 

First Question: How do we raise the public's opinion of the nation's direction?
Giuliani answers, but all I hear is "platitude, platitude, when I was Mayor of New York, platitude, cliché, platitude, Reagan, trope, trope."  He also says we should fix our healthcare without socialized medicine, because we don't want to risk being compassionate.  And oh by the way, fight terrorism (read: stay in Iraq).

Second Q: What does the Commander-in-Chief need to win in Iraq?
McCain's A: Support our President, our troops, and our current strategery.  He then jabs his finger in the camera and rails on the "defeatists" calling for withdrawal.  “Psst, McCain.  The war-mongers in the audience aren’t allowed to applaud.  Cool it.”  Incidentally, I don’t think he answered the question.  Matthews subtly suggests this point by asking “what should we do now?”  McCain backpedals slightly with “it was bad before, but we have a new strategy.”  That strategy being “Same great taste, but now with 57% more dead people!” 

3rd Q: Basically the same question
Tommy Thompson’s A: Tommy-Thom spasms out “Support our President” and I yawn, but then I realize he might be talking about body armor.  “Go ooooooooon” I say, in a horrible Jon Stewart impression.  He says we should have the Iraqi government vote on whether they want us there and if they say “No,” we leave.  “Holy crap, that’s actually SENSIBLE!” I glance down to make sure this is still the GOP debate.  He also suggests we have the Iraqis set up “state” governments for each of their 18 provinces in order to stop the violence.  “Yup, these are Republicans.”  All I can see that that would accomplish would be to make the Iraqi Civil War look more like ours.  Then he says the oil profits should be divided between the federal and state governments and the Iraqi people (one third to each).  Then they’ll invest in business.  “Yo, dude.  You realize Iraq doesn’t want to be America 2.0, right?”

4th Q: H-
Duncan Hunter’s A: Before Matthews can even ask anything, Hunter jumps up to his mic and gives his Iraq plan.  Basically, it’s “when they stand up, we’ll stand down.”  That’s what he was so excited about?  Really?

5th Q (from POLITICO.com): Why shouldn’t the President listen to the 55% of Americans who say victory isn’t possible (source: WSJ poll)?
Romney’s A: Well, if Presidents just listened to polls, we could just “plug in a TV and let it run the country.  And no one wants Gregory House as Surgeon General.”  I'm paraphrasing slightly.  Then he panders to the non-crazy voters with “I want to bring the troops home too,” but don’t want to destabilize the region.  “Because it’s so very stable now,” I say, nearly scratching a cornea from rolling my eyes so hard. 

6th Q: How do we win when our behavior just makes more terrorists?
Sam Brokeback, uh Brownback’s A: Ally with the moderate Muslims who like us (Bob, Joe, and Cat Stevens) and confront those who don’t, namely Iran.  I was with you on the first part, Sammy.  As a friend of mine recently said, 99.9999999999999% of Muslims hate terrorists as much as we do.  Then you started poking Iran with a stick.  If we so much as sneeze at Iran, we’ll convince the radical Muslims that, yes, we are imperialist pig-dogs bent on global domination.  And then,......it’s on, mf’er.  Matthews adds that even in the moderate Muslim countries only about 10% of the population supports us (source: Zogby poll).  He asks if we should make nice or keep with the killin’.  “Both,” Brownback weasels, “we cannot be weak on this whatsoever!”  I'm wondering how we can ally with a country when 90% of their population hates our guts.

[At this point, I took a looooooooong break.  It was several weeks, in fact.  When I came back to writing this, the Republican debate was gone from MSNBC.com.  You can thank (or blame) YouTube for the continuation of this post.]

7th Q (from POLITICO.com): Would you have fired Rumsfeld before last November?
Mike Huckabee’s A: He kinda says yes, but he’s quick to defend Bushie.  He says Bush followed the bad advice of the suits instead of the generals.  From here, “I <3” Huckabee goes off on “following the bad advice of the suits instead of the generals” being the cause for everything bad that’s happened in Iraq (“and by the way, generals are hot” he adds on the subliminal channel).  But now that it’s screwed up, we have to fix it so we don’t have to come back later.

8th Q: Do you think a shake-up in this administration’s cabinet would help?
Bill Gilmore’s A: Bill apparently heard some other question from the one I heard, because he goes off on something about the legacy of the Cold War and Reagan tearing down the Berlin Wall.  For those keeping score, that’s two Reagan-checks in under 30 minutes (Reagan Count: 2).  And that relates to the current war – somehow.  We have to pay attention to the ENTIRE Middle East, not just Iraq and the president has to rally Americans behind that goal and MY GOD he wasn’t even listening to the question, was he?  I kept waiting for Chris Matthews to call him on that, but he didn’t.  Bad Chris!

9th Q (from POLITICO.com): “Congressman Paul, you voted against the war.”  Why is everyone else on stage wrong?
Ron Paul’s A: “That’s a very good question,” (read: STALL STALL STALL).  Then he points out how 70% of Americans are now against the war – according to a poll he just made up (though it’s probably true) – and how Republicans got ass-raped in the mid-terms (**stab**).  Then he says we should return to a traditional, isolationist (or as he calls it, “non-interventionist”) foreign policy.  He goes on about how America the Republican Party have benefited from isolationism.  He says Eisenhower was elected to get us out of Korea (“maybe,” I say) and Nixon was elected to get us out of Vietnam (“do who to the wha?” I blather in confusion.  “Gee, I wonder how that worked out”).  By extension, he says that his party won in 2000 by touting a non-interventionist policy: 

“How did we win the election in the year 2000?  We talked about a HUMBLE **Clintonian thumb-fist-point** foreign policy.  NO **thumb-fist-point** nation building.  DON’T **thumb-fist-point** police the world.  That is a CONSERVATIVE **thumb-fist-point**; it’s a REPUBLICAN **thumb-fist-point**; it’s a PRO-AMERICAN **thumb-fist-point**; it follows the FOUNDING FATHERS **thumb-fist-point**....”  And also they won by not counting votes for the other guy.  But I digress.

He continues about how he tried to say that if you want to go to war, declare war, go to war, and win it, but don’t do it for political reasons “or to pretend the Iraqis were a national threat to us.”  BOO YAH!  I almost like this guy.  If it wasn’t for his “if the name of your country doesn’t end in ‘America’ and begin with ‘United States of,’ you’re on your own” attitude, I might.

10th Q: Two-parter: Do you agree that Iran has already committed acts of war?  What would be your “tripwire” to attack Iran?
McCain’s A: First of all, he starts smirking when he hears “acts of war.”  Creepy.  He doesn’t answer the question per se.  He goes on about how Iran is a threat to the world, sponsors terror, exports IEDs and jihadists, encourages Hezbollah, kicks puppies, and beats up old people.  He dances around saying “attack” and just calls for diplomatic, economic, etc. pressure.  He wants to find a way to encourage democracy in “Iraq, um Iran, sorry” **smirk**.  And by the way, don’t let them get nukes.  Matthews reminds McCain about the tripwire thing.  He says that if Iran gets nukes and there’s a threat to neighboring states (like Israel), that’s the tripwire, “but,” he emphasizes that that’s the “final option.”  From McCain, this is a speck of sanity in an ocean of crazy.

11th Q: If Israel was preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear sites and asked for America’s help, (cue Dennis Hopper voice) “what dooo youuuu dooooooo?”
Tom Tancredo’s A: In way more words than necessary (and much stammering and stuttering), Tancredo says that he’d help Israel because Mahmoud Ahmadinisanjayajad is a madman with delusions of apocalyptic grandeur.  Matthews prods Tancredo for a simple “yes” or “no” to whether he’d help.  Tancredo somehow manages to stretch his answer out to be both affirmative and wishy-washy and trip all over his words like Dick van Dyke over an ottoman.  Hey, I got it!  He’s acting presidential!

12th Q: Same question
Giuliani’s A: He hems and haws around it, saying “it depends on what the intelligence says.”  Apparently, something in that response triggered one of Rudy’s pre-programmed speeches because he connects “madman with nukes” to the nightmare scenario of the Cold War.  From there, he jumps to Ronald Reagan freeing the Iranian hostages with his mere divine presence (Reagan Count: 3).  Ooh, it’s 6° of Ronald Reagan!

[End of part 1]

Part 2 will be shorter, I promise.