Thursday, September 06, 2007

GOP meltdown

Ordinarily, you have to read the comments at Redstate.com or Powerline to see how truly inane the Republican base has become these days. But last night the GOP Presidential debates did just as well.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Thumb Screws) actually said "I would do waterboarding - I don't believe that that is 'quote' torture." Admittedly, Tancredo's bloodlust is toned down from what one finds at Redstate, where sunshine patriots not only endorse waterboarding terror suspects, but for the cashier at the all night convenience store down the street as well who may or may not be Muslim. But I still find Tancredo's comment astonishing given that the entire civilized world recognizes waterboarding as torture.

The GOP debate is also a rich source of found humor. Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Who?), got into an interesting back and forth with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Can't Win) over Iraq. Paul, the only anti-war candidate in the GOP field, said the war was destroying the Party of Lincoln. Huckabee countered that the US was committed to Iraq, and said "Even if we lose elections we should not lose the honor of the Republican Party." One indication of the GOP's deep state of denial over the last seven years is that no one on the stage, or the entire audience, laughed.

Gov. Mitt Romney, with an inadvertent nod to empiricism, said the surge is "apparently" working. Big mistake. Sen. John McCain (R-Bankrupt) pounced:
"The surge is working. Not apparently working. It is working. It's working because we have a great general, we have a good strategy, in Anbar Province things have improved. The Malaki government is not doing the things we want it to do. The police are not functioning the way we want them to do. But we are succeeding. And the great debate is not whether it's apparently working or not. The great debate will take place on the floor of the United State Senate in the middle of this month, and it's going to be whether we set a date for withdrawal which will be a date for surrender, or whether we will let this surge continue and succeed and I can assure you it's more than apparent. It is working."
I feel better already.

UPDATE

Sean Hannity lied to Fox viewers about Dr. Ron Paul's showing in the network's post debate poll. Fox invited viewers to text message their vote for favorite candidate, and Paul outpolled the competition with 33%. The next favorite candidate was Gov.Mike Huckabee with less than 17%.

But Hannity cautioned Fox viewers, with no evidence, that Paul's numbers were due to overzealous supporters text messaging multiple votes for their candidate. That was a lie - Fox only allowed one vote per text messaging cell phone.

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