Speaking of Hard to Swallow

If you think diet soda leaves a bad taste in your mouth, try politics.

Amend the Constitution for Conan

I caught the tail end of the Democratic debates last week, so I thought I'd check out the "other side of the aisle" and further test my gag reflex by watching the Republican debates tonight. 

Neither one of these events was a true debate.  A debate implies that opposing viewpoints will discussed.  Tonight it seemed that 8 out of 10 of these guys had the same answers.  When asked if the day that Roe v. Wade was repealed would be a great day for America, they all said yes, except for Rudy Giuliani who said, "It would be OK." (Way to take a stance, Rudy.)

The only two that seemed to stand out from the pack were Ron Paul and John McCain.

Ron Paul was the only candidate that squarely opposed the war in Iraq (he was one of only seven Republican members  of congress that voted against the war) and chastised the current U.S. foreign policy that views every third world country (or "developing nation" or "less developed nation" if we want to be more politically correct) as a threat and target for invasion, even if they don't have a military.  A Republican candidate that's against policing the rest of the world?

John McCain differentiated himself by saying that he believed in evolution(!) and that he was able to reach out to Democrats and Independents.  He said that he wanted intelligent, talented people involved in government regardless of party affiliation.  He even said that he'd ask John Chambers (the CEO of Cisco) to serve the government, since he's already made his millions.

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, dodged a question about how he would grade the handling of the war in Iraq by saying that you don't grade a student in the middle of an exam and that where he comes from you get your grade at the end and you don't want to take it home.  Frankly the thought of having a president that did so poorly in an Arkansas school that he didn't want to bring his grades home scares the hell out of me.  Then again,  Bill Clinton wasn't so bad.

Most of the Republican candidates tried to prove their conservativeness by stressing their faith (Sam Brownback said that America is a faith-based country whose motto is "in God we trust" and that we need to invite faith back into the "public square") and how they will restore family values and that having children out of wedlock is one of the biggest issues we face as Americans (this particular comment came from Mitt Romney).  Yeah, I definitely want the federal government's top priority to be making people get married before they have kids.  I think stopping the bleeding of Bush's $422 billion pet project should be like 10th on that to do list.

Tommy Thompson (former governor of Wisconsin) absolutely blew my mind with his response to the question, If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?  Thompson's response was, "I think that is left up to individual business.  I really sincerely believe that is a[n] issue that business people have to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be."

Both debates came off as campaign rallies more than anything.  Candidates completely ignored questions that were asked.  The Democrats could get a question about global warming and start ranting about Iraq.  The Republicans would get a question about being a compassionate conservative and instead blab about Iran or Ronald Reagan (the Republican debates were held at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA and these turds must have invoked Ronnie Raygun a hundred times).

Since I didn't do a debate wrap-up for the Dems last week, I'll say that in terms of the debate alone I was most impressed with Joe Biden.  He was calm, confident, and articulate.  He had solid answers for the questions he was asked (he actually has a plan for Iraq) and he didn't try to twist them into questions he wished he'd been asked. 

Mike Gravel (a former NYC cab driver) was awesome.  He was a total loose cannon and a straight shooter, which was refreshing when you had rehearsed polished politicians like Hillary and to a lesser extent Obama.

Obama said "um" so many times people are going to start calling him Umbama.  When asked how a terrorist attack on the United States would impact his foreign policy he said he would make sure the first responders were on the scene, not like in Katrina.  It wasn't clear to me how that related to international relations.

I don't think John Edwards is president material.  I barely thought he was vice president material in the last election.

Hillary seems like a talking head, with every sentence already formulated by a team of advisers.  My gut feeling isn't one of trust and truthiness.

Bill Richardson was sweating bullets and running over his allotted time on every question.  Obviously he did not hold up well to the debate format.

When all was said and done, the most follow-up coverage was given to the candidates already deemed as "first tier."  The media and popular opinion (a.k.a. the chicken and the egg) have already decided that it's down to Hillary, Obama, McCain, and Giuliani.  I don't give a damn.  Nain's still got my vote.