Debate Reax

John McCain presented himself as the most dignified, mature, and moral candidate on the stage. It was stimulating to see him take Mitt on about torture. He stated clearly that waterboarding is torture and that torture is unAmerican and against the law. Such things used to be beyond dispute in this country. This is how far and fast we have fallen.

Although, I have to say McCain threw me for a loop when he explicitly blamed the American people for losing the Vietnam war. What on earth?

I thought Ron Paul performed pretty well, except when he started rambling about the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commisssion, and the non-existent NAFTA superhighway. What, no thoughts about the Freemasons controlling the international price of zinc, congressman? Listening to Paul speak so sensibly about Middle East policy, it is easy to forget that in a lot of ways, he really is a right-wing nut.

Giuliani lost two major interest groups tonight: Christian fundamentalists and gun ownership fundamentalists. He did not do himself any favors with that longwinded explanation about the "allegorical" versus the "literal" in the bible. And, while I agree with him on this, his defense of regulation on gun ownership could not have helped him with the NRA crowd. That is not what those people want to hear.

I am no fan of Giuliani. In fact, he is the scariest candidate for high office that I have ever seen; but it seems a shame that articulating a position as reasonable as that one on gun ownership essentially disqualifies a person from being a credible GOP candidate. That party is being torn to pieces by the very extremist factions that it has courted with such fervor for so many years.

I still have no idea how Fred Thompson is regarded as anything but a joke.

Romney. Ay, yi, yi. I half expected to see a big key sticking out of his back when they cut to the wide shot from behind the podiums. I actually can't stand the sight of the guy, and his voice grates on my nerves like the sound of a broken window-unit air conditioner.

And I come away from this debate still convinced that Mike Huckabee will be the nominee. He is the natural choice for religious conservatives, and will have no problem getting the anti-tax folks on board with a little sweet talk.