Election Central Debate Roundup
• The most explosive moment last night came from Ron Paul's contention that U.S. intervention in the Arab world, such as sanctions and bombing campaigns against the Hussein-era Iraq, led to enmity against America — including 9/11. "That was an extraordinary statement, as someone who has lived through the attacks of Sept. 11th, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq," Rudy Giuliani exclaimed. After Paul stood by his statement, virtually all the candidates asked for 30 seconds to respond, prompting the moderators to cut off debate on the subject and move to the next line of discussion. Giuliani's forceful reply could potentially be remembered as the big moment of the night, and have him crowned the winner as a result.
• Curiously enough, Ron Paul came in second place in a Fox News cell-phone text message poll asking who won the debate, with 25%. Mitt Romney was first with 29%, and Rudy Giuliani third with 19%.
• Commenting later in the Fox News spin room, Rudy piled on Ron Paul, telling Sean Hannity that he expects Democrats to say America was to blame for 9/11, not his fellow Republicans.
• Also in the spin room, John McCain applauded Rudy for lashing out at Paul: "I thought Mayor Giuliani's intercession there was appropriate and frankly very, very excellent. I really appreciated it because we should never believe that we brought on this conflict. This is an evil force that is trying to destroy everything we stand for."
• This could possibly be the last GOP debate to feature a full minyan of these ten candidates allowed to participate. Fox News Carl Cameron said in the Fox spin room, "Prominent South Carolina Republicans are already suggesting ... that the field will winnow, at least in terms of future debates," citing the widely ridiculed performance by Ron Paul, plus the perceived inability of lesser candidates such as Mike Huckabee and Duncan Hunter to break through.
• Mike Huckabee had an early laugh line — on a par with Rudy Giuliani's censuring of Ron Paul's remarks, in terms of the applause — saying that in recent years Congress has been spending money "like John Edwards in a beauty shop." The line showed that few things can get applause from a Republican crowd like questioning the masculinity of a liberal.
• John McCain took a swipe at Mitt Romney: "I've been consistent about my position on campaign finance reform. Is there anyone who thinks there isn't enough money awash in politics? ... I have kept my position on the right to life. I haven't changed my position through the years based on the position I was running for."
• Only John McCain and Ron Paul rejected the use of torture to extract information from terror suspects. While McCain allowed that he might permit extreme techniques in a "one in a million" situation if he were fully convinced that it was necessary, he would take full responsibility for the consequences and not sanction torture as a regular practice. "It’s not about the terrorists, it’s about us. It’s about what kind of country we are," McCain said. Paul ridiculed the term "enhanced interrogation techniques," favored by Brit Hume, as "Newspeak."
• Mitt Romney condemned the notion of giving terror-related detainees access to attorneys and courts: "I'm glad they're at Guantanamo. I don't want them on our soil. I want them on 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. Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo." The crowd then applauded.
• Tom Tancredo had some colorful language in how to treat terror suspects in case of a hypothetical attack on American soil. "You say that nuclear devices have gone off in the United States, more are planned, and we're wondering about whether waterboarding would be a bad thing to do?" Tancredo asked. "I'm looking for Jack Bauer at that time!" (Note: The terror scenario posed by Brit Hume did not mention nuclear devices going off in the United States, but was simply about "suicide bombers" attacking shopping malls.)
• Mike Huckabee attacked Rudy Giuliani's simultaneous moral denuncation of abortion and his support for abortion rights, saying it was akin to disapproving of slavery but allowing it anyway.
• Jim Gilmore was prompted to name names and specific policies to back up his frequent contention that "Rudy McRomney" is not a conservative. He then attacked Rudy Giuliani for being pro-choice, Mitt Romney for passing health-care mandates in Massachusetts, plus Mike Huckabee for raising taxes in Arkansas.
• Rudy Giuliani had a smooth reply to Gilmore's "Rudy McRomney" line: "I think Rudy McRomney wouldn't make a bad ticket."
• John McCain's reply to Gilmore's outlining of the sins of "Rudy McRomney", which only included the infractions of Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee: "Did I get left out?"
Comments (19)
Unmitigated Audacity wrote on May 16, 2007 10:53 AM:How about a Mike Gravel/Ron Paul anti-imperial, anti-fascist ticket?
UA
February 22, 1998, Edict of Osama Bin Laden:
"For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples."
"Despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation."
CNN, January 2001, The Unfinished War: A Decade Since Desert Storm:
(CNN) -- In winning the Persian Gulf War, the United States also made itself a resourceful and elusive enemy in the form of accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The son of a Saudi Arabian businessman, bin Laden has called for a Muslim jihad, or holy war, against the United States. He has encouraged Muslims to kill all the Americans -- civilian or military -- they can.
His rage stems from the decision by Saudi Arabia to allow the United States to use the country as a staging area for attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Iraq. After the victory, the U.S. military presence became permanent.
Why is it OK for President Bush to cite the words of Bin Laden but not for OK for Rep. Ron Paul to do the same? It's either worthwhile to study your enemy or it's not. Rep. Ron Paul wasn't excusing the attacks, or talking about the ongoing Iraq War. Paul was talking about the first Gulf War.
fuzz wrote on May 16, 2007 11:29 AM:"Mitt Romney condemned the notion of giving terror-related detainees access to attorneys and courts: "I'm glad they're at Guantanamo. I don't want them on our soil. I want them on 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. Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo." The crowd then applauded."
Bush's current Secretary of Defense says we should close Guantanamo. Romney is staking out his position as being more anti-human-rights and more tortureful than the current administration? Does he think Bush's approval numbers are so low because Bush isn't personally torturing suspects on a reality TV show called "Guilty Until We Decide You Aren't (Or You Die Of Organ Failure)"
Is this what the Book of Mormon teaches? Have the Mormons gone from hating dark brown people to hating light brown people?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." If you don't like the United States of America, Mitt, please leave and take all your psychopath criminal buddies with you.
cscs wrote on May 16, 2007 12:00 PM:These Republicans all think we're still stuck in 2002. It's amazing the ignorance on display last night.
They have learned nothing from Bush's failure. It's All Torture! All The Time!
"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani
JHM wrote on May 16, 2007 12:03 PM:I tried to view the Ron Paul to-do on foxnews.com, and I didn't want to sit through the whole thing, so I decided to check out their post debate shows [I want to interject here and say that, whatever faults that Mr. Murdock et alii may have, the Foxnews video section blows CNN out of the water (too bad it's all dross!)].
At any rate, in order to debate who "won," they featured one Romney partisan (and fellow Mormon), one Rudi partisan and one McCain partisan. So, if nothing else, all could agree that none of the other seven candidates "won the debate." Nice.
dannebrog wrote on May 16, 2007 12:13 PM:"That was an extraordinary statement, as someone who has lived through the attacks of Sept. 11th, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq," Rudy Giuliani exclaimed.
Huh? 9/11 came *before* the current Iraq war. Maybe he means the no-fly zones and sanctions, or maybe he means the first Gulf War. Or maybe he's so keyed into his talking points that he has no idea when they contradict reality. Whatever the case, this is an extraordinarily dumb way to counter the point.
freespeak wrote on May 16, 2007 12:29 PM:Ron Paul represented the Libertarian point of view fabulously. The response from the GOP shows just how far Loyal Bushies have taken Repubicans in the oppoiste direction.
As far as John Edwards, now we all get to sit around watching helplessly while they do to him what they did to Al Gore and John Kerry.
Although he never said it, Al Gore basically DID invent the internet. Bush still thinks "they" "are" "the internets."
And Lt Kerry, in contrast to Lt. AWOL, was a true war hero.
John Edwards is being reduced to two-word stereotypes: "$400 haircut" "Breck Girl" etc.
These bullies absolutely disgust me. Anything we can do to stop it, or is Edwards just a joke now?
How many times is Sean Hannity going to assert that the most important question in the debate is whether the future president will authorize coercisive interrogation techniques if a future band of terrorists hypothetically possesses a nuclear bomb and is on the verge of attacking the US? He did it at every interview after the debate? Apparently the FOX/GOP strategy is still Terrorism and who's got the biggest balls to do something crazy about it? Terrorists,immigration, big government,....repeat, repeat,repeat, repeat,.......nothing new. I was quite bored with all the sunshine being pumped up their Asses,...interesting that Ron Paul beat Guiliani in the debate poll,....yeah Mr G, that's pretty absurd to think that the reason a few muslims bombed us is because we have a huge military presence in the mideast. And yes Rumsfeld authorized bombing Iraqi targets during the sanctions 2000-2002, I believe over 40 times.
lj629 wrote on May 16, 2007 1:04 PM:I noticed that the Republican candidates spend a lot of time boasting how "conservative" they are. I'm not sure I've ever heard the word "liberal" uttered at a Democratic debate and I definately have trouble imagining the Dem candidates making the case that they are the most liberal. Why is that? Shouldn't we be at least as proud of our liberalism as they are of their conservatism?
It also seems like there is no such thing in the eyes of Republicans as someone who is "too conservative." Yet even here on TPM I see posts and comments that paint some Democrats as "too liberal." Attacks on Kucinich come to mind.
I also noticed that the Republican candidates seemed to vilify the very notion of bipartisanship. John McCain was essentially attacked for working with Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform and for working with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform. Do we as liberals do the same thing? Joe Lieberman comes to mind. Is my vilification of Joe Lieberman any different than Republican vilification of John McCain? Do I actually oppose bipartisanship while thinking I support it? Just sayin'.
It was interesting to see all of the candidates, the audience, and the moderators all pile on Ron Paul for daring to speak his mind about the fact that it is our intervention in the Arab world that helped create 9/11. I thought Guiliani's absurd demand that Paul retract his opinion was very telling. No deviation from Republican talking points dare be tolerated in the land of the free speech.
gqmartinez wrote on May 16, 2007 1:51 PM:I think the correct phrase is having a "pre-1776 mindset".
cevrero wrote on May 16, 2007 2:02 PM:Speaking of haircuts......Did you hear Sean Hannity say that he spends no more than 10-15 bucks on his haircuts?,...he must get his hair done by illegal immigrants for that price. These guys are so full of themselves, it must take a pea brain to give any of these guys respect. They're pompous dousches!
tomanjeri wrote on May 16, 2007 2:10 PM:The audience's applause to Rudy not understanding Ron Paul's comments and their applause to Mitt's idiotic (and unAmerican) statement regarding Guantanamo was sickening. It's sad how gullible and emotion driven the Republican base is.
The only good to come out of this is all the candidates are veering so hard to the right to appease the base they're going to eat all of these words during the national campaign. McCain was the only standout on the use of torture, but he doesn't have much leg in that debate since he authored the bill that allows such torture in the first place.
MB Sullivan wrote on May 16, 2007 2:15 PM:Perhaps it makes me a bad Democrat, but I thought the Mike Huckabee line about Congress spending money like John Edwards at a beauty shop was pretty funny.
Sorry Eric, but the Edwards campaign has brought this ridicule on itself. You are correct in pointing out that in the frat-tastic jockocracy that is today's GOP, it is standard operating procedure to feminize male candidates and defeminize female candidates. That said, it is not the GOP's fault that the Edwards campaign team didn't have enough sense to refrain from reporting a $400 haircut as a campaign expenditure.
Being angry at the GOP for making fun of this is like Britney Spears being angry at the paparazzi for photographing her lady parts as she exited the limo sans panties.
_________________________________________________________
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
cscs wrote on May 16, 2007 2:31 PM:Anything we can do to stop it, or is Edwards just a joke now?
We can start ridiculing them. That's what I would do. But Democrats want to believe there's a High Road in politics.
"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani
cscs wrote on May 16, 2007 2:44 PM:Is my vilification of Joe Lieberman any different than Republican vilification of John McCain? Do I actually oppose bipartisanship while thinking I support it? Just sayin'.
Only if you believe the kind of "bipartisanship" that Lieberman stands for, where the Iraq war is enabled, where anti-choice judges are put in the bench, is good our our country. Bipartisanship should come at the end of a long, bitter struggle for what you believe -- not something you initially bring to the table.
Personally, I am against what passes for bipartisanship today. That we would look for some kind of compromise on, for example, torture, or illegal wiretapping, is ludicrous.
"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani
freespeak wrote on May 16, 2007 3:03 PM:I'm VERY willing to take the "not-high" road. But what do you mean by, "We can start ridiculing them."
I ridicule them all the time. And my ridicules are sometimes witty as hell.
But they still don't play my ridicules a zillion times a day on Fox Noise... which gets it to CNN, which gets it to the MSM... like they do Mike Huckabee's.
The jokes about John Edward's hair will be taking on a life of their own soon. Watch.
I just hate this helpless feeling. It's very frustrating to see it coming and not know how to STOP it.
The first campaign I worked on in 2004 was Bob Graham's. The ridicule was his diary. Nevermind that Graham had the actual goods on the Liar-in-Chief way before anyone else was willing to say it. He was a joke because of his diary.
I moved on to Howard Dean. A man who was a successful stockbroker, a successful physician, a successful state legislature, and a outstanding state governor was reduced to "The Scream."
I moved on to John Kerry. In my wildest dreams, I had no idea a guy who cut in line to get out of war could beat a guy who volunteered for war... on a war platform.
So, John Edwards will soon be a laughing stock, while we watch.
And I'm pissed about it ahead of time.
I can see your point, and I won't call it automatically invalid. That said, I wasn't trying to make any point about Edwards. Instead, I was referring to the way that Republicans seem to delight in calling Democrats a bunch of sissies, and this constitutes a major applause line at debates and other campaign events. This preoccupation on their part seems just a little too sophomoric to me — and I have a pretty sick sense of humor.
cscs wrote on May 16, 2007 3:51 PM:By "We can start..." I meant the Dem candidates. Find their weakness and don't relent. That's what they do.
Ad Absurdum wrote on May 16, 2007 4:37 PM:
The answer to Mr Hannity is that coerced interrogation methods are unnecessary in a nation whose leader simply takes fewer vacations and actually does something about forewarnings of terror threats rather than play the blame game post-disaster with our hardworking intelligence agencies that tried to forewarn him.
In other words, the Cliff Schecter technique will always work against republicans. Bring up their incompetence, be it as a direct result of their laissez-tout-aller-a-la-merde ideology or as the inevitable consequence of their affirmative action for corrupt and incompetent republicans which has led to disasters of Katrina, 911, and Iraqi Provisional Authority scale.
And yes, it's time to nail 911, their biggest failure, on their backsides. It is easily feasible, and sorry Dems, Iraq alone just will not do. It's really not that hard to make those bullies cry.
