Here we go again, basically relying on my semi-drunk R-rated notes along with the tape from Stan to fill in the blanks from the HamNation Memorial Clinton Bashfest. It’s SOOO much nicer listening to Brit and company than Prissy Chrissy. I wonder if Clinton will continue to refuse to debate on Fox News once we get into the general election season.
Fox News – B – For the most part, they let the blood be spilled. Golner dragged down the team’s performance signifcantly, and the exclusion of Alan Keyes to include Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter isn’t exactly defensible.
Rudy Giuliani – B – Don’t let my constant “Rudi” calls in the live-blog fool you. Once he got done lying about his conservative creds (and that’s exactly what they are, lies), he became UPS Man and delivered the raw red meat. Those early lies knocked this down from a probable “A”.
Mike Huckabee – B+ – He wasn’t around much, and seems to be resigned to the fact that he won’t be President in 2009, but he’s making lemonade out of that by becoming the early front-runner for the Veep slot no matter the man on top.
Duncan Hunter – C – Once again ignored, but finally found something other than Red China to talk about. Caused Romney to stumble on CubaCare Taxachusetts. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been paying much attention to the recreation of the Soviet Union.
John McCain – A- – Delivered the Smackdown of the Night, and is committed to the protection of America. A couple bouts of vagueness hurt the final score some.
Ron Paul – F – Once again, proved he’s the wrong man for the wrong party in the wrong era, and that he’s clueless on history to boot. Couldn’t answer a single question without dipping into the Hussein Obama/Osama bin Laden playbook of foreign relations. If we could get at least one non-Paul-nut debate before the convention, I would get to remove the R-rating from my live-blogging efforts.
Mitt Romney – C+ – Easily his weakest performance. Revealed himself to have hands-so-soft when it came time to break out the brass knuckles, but eventually managed to get a good shot at Clinton. Worse, he doesn’t see that the Dems have no intentions of compromising on anything, and we all know what happened to the last guy who resolutely said he was a “uniter, not a divider”.
Tom Tancredo – C- – See the start to Duncan’s grade, but he got in a heck of a shot on Nancy Pelosi in between his one-issue anti-illegal-alien crusade. He was led into it by Thompson.
Fred Thompson – A- – Just call him Broadsides Thompson. Plenty of shots to be had for all within range. Still has a bit of a problem with specifics, however.
Ron Paul F? What does the F stand for Freakin Awesome? an A for McCain? His crack about woodstock was awesome but outside of that excellent comment I saw nothing great about McCain and hope that he can find a way to gracefully bow out. McCain is a personal hero of mine but I do not agree with a lot of his politics.
Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo did well. Tancredo I thought really shown when he brought up the constitutionality of some of the issues, and showed that he was more than a one issue candidate.
I’ve not been comfortable with Guiliani so far, but after last night thought that I could support him if he won the party’s nomination.
I agree with giving Mitt a C+, he sounds more like a democrat than anyone else up there on the stage and if he gets the nod, I am certainly voting for a 3rd party.
Fred Thompson blows too, he totally did not deserve an A, more like a C+. He did better in this debate than others, but the guy simply does not live up to his hype and obviously is not the Next Reagan.
When it comes to the next Reagan, Ron Paul could surpass Reagan and is the best Presidential candidate that we have had in over 100 years. He is the only guy thinking outside of the box and of fear and paranoia that has been built for us by the media since 9/11. He is the only guy that can be trusted to actually reduce the size of the federal government and bring America together.
Sometimes I think that you Ron Paul bashers would be treating George Washington or Thomas Jefferson the same way if they were runing for President today.
I guess it’s round 2. Do you know your history, Johnny? I guess not. Allow me to explain a thing or two about Jefferson for you.
Thomas Jefferson not only expanded the frontier of the US beyond the Mississippi River in what Paul would have called an unconstitutional move, but he engaged in the first foreign war, against the forerunners of Al Qaeda, with essentially the same level of Congressional authorization that President Bush has in Iraq.
I’m a firm believer in a simple, if crude, foreign policy – you fuck with us, we’ll fuck you up. The Islamists chose to fuck with us. We’re not done fucking them up because they’re still interested in turning us into part of the worldwide Caliphate, which is wholly incompatible with the Constitution. Unlike the typical American, and especially you, they have a very long memory.
Even on the domestic front, Paul is less than interested in actually putting forth small-l libertarian values of small government, as opposed to big-L Libertarian ones of pot-for-all.
You sound quite conflicted. How can you be interested in both Paul and Giuliani? If there ever were polar opposites on the right end of the spectrum, they’re it.
The Islamists who attacked us weren’t from Iraq. 15 of 19 were from Saudi Arabia. If we should be fucking anybody up, it would seem to be them. Hussein’s Baath party was virulently secular; Osama bin Laden and Hussein hated each other. Please tell me you’re not one of the people who still thinks Iraq was behind 9/11.