Posted by
Charles Lewis on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 8:35:53 AM
by Charles Lewis
The more I hear Ron Paul rant on about:
- the "American empire" (like the good Marxist talking points artist he apparently is {we're at the bottom of the totem pole, threatened on every side, about to lose even what little we have, and haven't added one square inch of land, and to him we're the world's scourge}),
- "no WMDs in Iraq" (Bush and company covered up huge stashes, to help the Dems win big in the elections {like the good RINOs they are} - just as they're welcoming 100,000,000 or so Democrat voters via his immigration betrayal),
- our "pre-emptive" strike against the people who blew up Oklahoma City (another thing Bush helped cover up to help our enemies {his bosses, the bosses of all RINOs}) as the biggest moral crisis we face (the heck with abortion, I suppose - at least Sam Brownback called that one like it is)
- the allegation that we're waging "wars for oil" (so why is gas 30¢ a gallon in Iraq and going up to $4 here? - this is another traditional communist talking point)
- his recommendation that we should wait till Iran wipes us entirely off the map (which it constantly vows to do) before we try to do anything about her:
...the more I can tolerate "Rudy McRomney."
Oh, sure, Paul got the most applause throughout the evening from the Manchester, NH crowd, and no doubt will clean up in the post debate polls, as he did in the first two. But Giuliani got very big applause (his biggest) when he asked the media if - given General Petraeus reports this September that the new Iraq strategy is working - they will report this as vigorously as if he says it's not. This occurred immediately after one of Paul's America hating tangents, and can viewed as evidence that Paul also engenders the biggest backlash.
Listen, my readers know that I consider the Bushites unequivocally evil, and that I positively loathe the CFR wing of the GOP - and that includes especially McCain, Giuliani, and Romney. If Paul's ravings (which go against not only every one of my core principles and beliefs but so much of what I know to be factually true) have the effect that I now rate him at the bottom of the ten GOP contenders (and, I remind you he used to be my favorite congressman), just imagine what he does to less passionate members of the conservative base.
Have fun, ye Paul partisans, while it lasts. Just know in the long run it's making it impossible for a good candidate with broader appeal and lower negatives (I'm including Tom Tancredo, and, after this debate, Duncan Hunter, though he still needs to explain his apparent acceptance of the Al Gore lie) from gaining traction. And we'll wind up stuck with "Rudy Newt McRomneyson."
Hunter, by the way, had his best debate. He took a cue from debate 2 and, when asked the same loaded Scooter Libby pardongate question some other leftist operative had posed in that previous instance, gave the same answer Tom gave at that time - that he would pardon political prisoners Ramos and Compeán, whom the Bushites are holding in prison squalor to intimidate the non-incarcerated border patrols from doing their jobs. We can't accuse him of plagiarism, as he wrote the House bill that aims to pardon them.
Tancredo, ironically, had one of his better moments when - after a clearly asked and clearly reiterated request for a "yes: or "no" answer to the Libby pardon question had precipated about 3 rambling minutes from Giuliani and shorter but still lengthy responses from Hunter, Brownback, and others, Tom played by the rules and, as the last respondent, offered a simple "yes." (One word was more than this pejorative queery merited.)
Paul's response, by the way, was a simple, "no," typical of the leftist tilt of just about everything he said tonight. Can somebody tell me anything substantially conservative about Ron Paul at this stage of his career? Not much, as far as I can tell.
Tancredo, by the way, appeared more flustered and stammering than he did in previous debates, I must admit. ...Evidence, I feel, that the Paul effect, which has so sapped Tom's natural support, is getting to him. More evidence that this is the case were his evident efforts to mimic Paul - including Tancredo's call for unilateral withdrawal from Iraq given the Petraeus prognosis is poor, and Tom's other attempts at a clean break from the administration (something that was present in the past, but more forcefully emphasized tonight).
Tom's forthright statement that George W Bush (in whom he expressed great disappointment on immigration, No Child Left Behind, prescription drugs, and growth of government) would have no role in his adminstration was met with surprisingly tepid audience reaction, given the generally run-away-from-Bush tenor of all the candidates and the consistent applause for anything anti-hero Paul said all night. On another occasion, Tancredo asserted, correctly, that the erosion of Republican support was in large part due to the fact that W had run as a conservative, but governed as a liberal, a point that needed to be made, for the sake of true conservative candidates at all levels.
When asked about Arnold Swarzeneggar's "success" "governating" with the support of "moderates" and independents, Hunter scored some points with a definitive nyet, opting to point out the folly in the photo ops and other forms of cooperation that Romney (on socialized medicine and anti-gun rights), McCain (immigration and just about everything else), and Giuliani had shared with Teddy Kennedy. These three chose not to defend these indefensible activities, but invoke the trusty ghost of Ronald Reagan (who drew support from the center based not on comporomise, but strong conservative policies and convictions). Under the circumstances, this was (unfortunately) an excellent strategy, with Mitt scoring the biggest coup.
Beyond this, we learned that:
- Giuliani, Romney, and Gilmore all accept the Al Gore global warming mantra (please go to www.rightalk.com and watch the BBC's "Great Global Warming Deception" to be disabused - forever - of that mendacious notion),
- Giuliani is just as "pro-choice" as ever (well-timed lightning strikes notwithstanding), and he considers the genocidal communist regime in Vietnam our "friend" (a bizarre sentiment he shares with Dr. Paul),
- McCain is the only candidate that openly rejects English as our official language (the fact that the other eight agreed with Tancredo's impassioned call for this unfortunately defused the impact of the capital he put into this issue); I found it alarming that McCain got a lot of applause for his effusive (and totally irrelevant) praise of the Hispanic American citizenry - in an apparent, implied scolding of opponents of his immigration monstrosity,
- Nobody, when given a chance to talk about the unaffordability of health care, talked about astronomical malpractice insurance costs in the absence of tort reform and the presence, therefore, of similarly astronomical settlements; instead, the focus was all on one or another form of veiled socialized medicine (even though everybody condemned the more overt form advocated by the Democratic contenders); this, sadly, gave Romney - a staunch advocate of socialism in this sphere - an opportunity to appear downright free marketish.
- Romney, who's been getting a lot of wishful thinking points from true conservatives on the immigration bill issue by vocally opposing it, really has a problem only with one aspect - the fact that the "Z-visa" will be, in effect, permanent (I haven't been counting, but I'll bet I can think of 50 times that many abominations); it's an important objection, true, but, apparently, tweak that one point and Mitt joins the enemy.
Once again, Huckabee's performance left me moderately impressed (and, no doubt, once again, he impressed practically nobody else). He's known for his wit, which he displayed on a couple occasions tonight. A native of Bill Clinton's Hope, Arkansas, hometown (I hadn't known this), he introduced himself with reference to that fact, asking for "one more chance" for Hope hopefuls. Later, when, having been denied an earlier request to speak on immigration (when he eventually did, he did not particularly distinguish himself), he was asked his second question on a "moral" issue, he quipped that it seemed as if he would be the one to reply to all the "moral questions" - and followed up with how at least that beat having to answer "immoral questions."
He later offered a well rehearsed listing of damaging "ations" (immigration, taxation, regulation, litigation, job migration, and a president with poor communication) that he wished to emphasize. Given the alarming responses to the health insurance question, it was nice to hear about the negative effects of our litigiousness, and, for sure, our president has communicated nothing but a negative impression of conservatives.
The leftist CNN commentators served their ideological side well, both with their slanted and/or irrelevant questioning and their outrageous "halftime show" (I couldn't bear to take in the "postgame" festivities). McCain and Guliani - the two most flaming liberals among the pack - were given nothing but accolades. One brazen female gushed about how McCain had cleared his name once and for all with his brilliant defense of his (ultra-treasonous) immigration position.
[Okay, Paul actually did make one point with which I wholeheartedly agree. He's right when he says our troops should not be policing the streets of Baghdad. An army, like a shark, needs to keep moving forward.]
Tancredo's biggest blunder was in choosing the wrong question to change the subject to immigration. (He had been given an early hanging curve on that issue, but had wasted too much time "choking up on the bat," rather than getting to the point) A ghastly question on whether a conservative can be a conservationist gave him a chance to discuss the horribly deleterious effects that everything from the invasion itself to Bush's uninspected Mexican truck avalanche is having, and wil have, on the American environment. Instead, he went on for about thirty seconds on a "free market" solution that he did not in any way explicate (and probably coundn't have).
Later, when he was asked what it meant to be an American (a subject on which he has both written and spoken as eloquently as anyone I have read or heard), he chose a non sequitir response about a moratorium on even legal immigration (an issue where I - and only a small minority of Americans in general - agree with him). The others on the stage knocked that out of the park like a tee ball, albeit with a bunch of platitudes. And they added some other tired bromides in direct response to the original "being an American" question that probably stood them in fairly good stead and diminished Tom's standing.
But even if Tancredo's door is steadily closing, I thought that Hunter's may still be ajar. He appears more poised and articulate than Tom, and he may be our one real political hope, assuming Ron Paul's Pied Piper tactics don't snuff him out. And then there's the ultimate anti-Paul, Dr. Hugh Cort, who, in spite of being kept out of the debates so far, actually won a straw poll - in Rhode Island. He's the real deal, for what that's worth.