CNN wasn't the problem

Matthew Continetti, writing on the Weekly Standard's campaign blog, derides the debate as nothing more than an opportunity for the candidates to "[Stand] in front of CNN's corporate logo in a hall full of yowling Ron Paul loons and enduring clumsy webcam questions from Unabomber look-a-likes in murky basements[.]"

He longs for the days before that "Internet" gizmo allowed the GOP's rank-and-file to make themselves seen and heard in all their glory.

So, a good night for for the lowest denominator, a bad night for the GOP. America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Got news for you, Matt - that is the GOP. Where have you been?

If a one-eyed man is a king in the land of the blind, a man with an ounce of compassion or common sense is a philosopher-king among Republicans, where the entire party seems to be in a race to the bottom of the evolutionary ladder (Me DOUBLE Guantanmo! RAAHR!). If Huckabee won the debate, he did it mainly by coming across as less of a neanderthal than the rest of them (Although for my money, it was John McCain who did that by being bold enough to condemn torture - go figure).