Reactions to tonight's GOP debate:
The three "leading" contenders - Romney, McCain, Giuliani - got the softballs and the most opportunities to expound; all three tried to present themselves as "conservatives" but all showed their true stripes.
The same three - Romney, McCain, Giuliani - all came out on the pro-death side of the Terri Schiavo issue, criticizing Congress for even the toothless, purely symbolic gesture it made in defense of her right to life (even though it did nothing when a tinhorn homicidal judge chose to flagrantly violate it). Nuff said.
These three - plus Tommy Thompson and Jim Gilmore - could not conceal their support for "a woman's right to choose," or something on that order in terms of the abortion issue.
Tancredo was given mostly ridiculously irrelevant questions that prevented him from showcasing his unique strengths.
Tancredo was also the only candidate that was cut off, and it happened three times, including at least once when he was clearly way under his time limit and another time when he begged a couple more seconds to finish a crucial point on Iraq; meanwhile, others, especially the "leading lefties" blithely went way past the "red light" on numerous occasions.
The worst example was when Tom was trying to bring up the Ramos/Compean case (and explain it to the vast majority of viewers who've been kept in the dark on it by the mainstream media freeze-out) and call for a pardon. Moderator Chris Matthews shut him up abruptly (as if he were some loudmouth brat disrupting an English class) and did not let him get anything coherent out.
[The fact that the GOP allows flaming liberals to orchestrate and thoroughly control every aspect of their debate is proof positive of the need for a third party.]
Ron Paul, though he made many very good points, saddened me with a continuation of his amening of the hard left; he accused people of "pretending" that Iraq was a threat, and he breezily ignored the overwhelming evidence that this administration - to treasonously give the UN a PR victory and allow the Democrats their overwhelming elections sweep - has covered up any and everything that would have justified the Iraqi invasion (from Oklahoma City to Salman Pak to the 500 WMDs the de-classified documents revealed to David Gaubatz to John Shaw to General Saba...). Instead, he said he supported the conviction of Scooter Libby - not because any law was violated, which it wasn't, but because Libby helped us justify that selfsame invasion that the Bushites have gone to the ends of the earth to keep from seeming justified. Even if we grant Paul that point (and, hey, I agree that wars need to be declared, so I'm really in his camp fundamentally, although I think there was every reason to declare war on Iraq), he's basically saying Libby should be serving his scapegoat role in prison for political reasons, that he approves of Libby the political prisoner. Shame, shame.
The evening's biggest disappointment, however, was Duncan Hunter. He basically endorsed Al Gore's thoroughly discredited position on global warming. And, with gas prices heading to $4, he made a big point about "energy independence," yet said nothing about ANWR or any other kind of domestic oil production permission. Scratch him, as far as I'm, concerned.
There were a few rays of hope in general (and I'm not talking about the transparently feigned conservatism of the big three); at least several of the candidates spoke out on the critical issue of repealing the Clintonian "alternative minimum tax" - although none of them really articulated the reason - that this typically Democratic non-indexed-to-inflation tax will impoverish all hard working Americans as salaries increased but buying power doesn't. And a few - most notably, Huckabee, Tancredo, and Paul - advocated the end of the federal income tax.
While Tancredo - even though he was systematically muzzled and minimized - once again stood out as the only true advocate for America (and the strongest Christian values candidate), the one candidate that came up a little bit in my view was Mike Huckabee, especially in his seemingly sincere expression of his faith. If he's the nominee, I might reluctantly vote for him.