Notes on the Republican Debate

CNBC/MSNBC/Wall Street Journal Debate, October 9th, 2007

These may be the dumbest people ever collected on a stage together (well, aside from anyone dumb enough to be in an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical). Seriously, though.

John McCain (seen for the last four years playing Bush's lapdog) actually tried to remind us that he was one of the only people criticizing the President way back in the day. And I don't mean in the sense that he was critical of Bush now, though he was. I mean he actually said "I want to remind you that..."

Oh, and this was fantastic. Most of the candidates believe that the President has the ultimate power to declare war. Yeah. Isn't that terrifying? I mean, they were talking about "imminent threats" and all that bullshit. Ron Paul (my hero) started yelling about it though. That was pretty cool. Fred Thompson also agreed that it is important to go to Congress for war, though his reasoning wasn't "cause the Constitution says so."

I love it when they all contradict each other. They spent the first twenty minutes talking about whether or not the US is in a deficit (Um... why not just look at the budget?). Words clearly have no set meaning for these people.

Sam Brownback wants to cut US funding for advanced technology. And Mike Huckabee wants to make ethanol (the corn based one) the standard in ten years. Both of these people are fools (for different reasons).

The good thing here is that these people are better on energy... well, mostly. They're okay with nuclear power (which reminds me, don't you fucking dare vote for Edwards) and just about everything else. McCain even acknowledged climate change and said that we should cut that shit out (my words). They're also (mostly) big fans of the free market, which is superb.

This video, that I'm streaming online, has commercials. What... the... fuck?

...still commercialing. Should that have two "l"s? I can't decide.

Ron Paul (<3) says that unions should always be allowed. Not necessarily respected, but *always* allowed (see: First Amendment). McCain states (correctly) that no one should be required to be in a union should they not want to. Mitt Romney specifically states that the Carpenter's Union is a good union. In fact, I'm just generally amazed at how much the Republicans don't hate unions. There are good unions, and there are bad unions. That's pretty cool. (The cynic in me is reminded me that they're in Dearborn, Michigan. Y'know, the heart of the auto industry.)

Tom Tancredo just made fun of Brownback's mother. This makes me smile.

McCain wants sugar cane based ethanol in this country. Go go gadget McCain! Though, I'm not sure where he thinks it'll come from. Maybe he has a sugar plantation in Jamaica and imports it.

Our good buddy Rudy Giuliani is talking about "policing the internet". Ah, freedom of speech, we hardly knew ye. He talks about child predators like he gets all his facts from "To Catch a Predator". McCain, however, disagrees. He's having none of it.

Lightning round: stupid and pointless. Full of meaningless sound bytes. Except for Sam Brownback, who espoused the utter nonsense about "family values" and how single parent families aren't as good for children. What a fucking moron.

General thoughts: Brownback sounds a lot like Rick Santorum, and should be quietly gassed to death. McCain and Thompson seem like the least insane options right now, other than Ron Paul, who could never be elected in this country for the simple fact that he's correct and the only thing that could help us. I've got to be honest, out of the 15ish candidates, the only one I want to vote for is Ron Paul, because he's the only one worth voting for.

Sigh.