Redstate

It was an opportunity for lefty journos (and sportscasters) to take childish cheap shots.

By Mark Kilmer Posted in 2008 — Comments (18) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Why was there a debate between the Republican Party's Presidential candidates? Was it the last gasp of a dying cable network (MSNBC)? Was it an opportunity for Politico.com to enter the world of playas? Who knows, who cares, and who watched?

It was not a debate, but the clowns were there. Gaylord Parkinson's 11th Commandment – devised for and attributed to the President at whose library this show took place -- offers me guidance in discussing the candidates, but names like Chris Matthews and that sportscaster guy were a barrel of laughs, family entertainment, etc.

I watched part of the circus. I first saw the lead in, the intro to the debate, featuring an irate, temperamental sportscaster who cannot think clearly, but the debate itself was at President's Reagan's library, and everyone had nice things to say about President Reagan. Warming the cockles, etc., and the sportscaster was probably off-camera, muttering about Gorbie not having as many WMD as Reagan insisted, manipulating intelligence to win the cold war, etc. Nontheless, random order had Romney was on the far left and Tancredo on the right.

Chris Matthews was moderating, and he used his forum to blast the Bush Administration in front of a group of Republicans who needed to keep their distance from that Administration. (NOTE: It was the same with Clinton (Bill) when he left office with half the contents of the White House in tow.) He asked Jim Gilmore if President Bush should shakeup his Administration. It's not a question for a Presidential candidate, one who would serve after the Bush Administration had left town, but it was part of Matthews' prank. He later asked Gilmore if he would keep Karl Rove in his Administration.

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Chrissy (Matthews) asked Rudy if he thought the increased influence in the Christian conservatives "in your party is good for it." Increased from when? People have been complaining about the Evangelicals for thirty years, forecasting that they'd doom the GOP. As long as any group votes and contributes time and money as the Evangelicals do… nah, Chris has his known facts.

There were some good answers to decent questions. Matthews asked Romney about Osama bin Laden. The best part of Mitt's answer, I thought, was when he explained that the war of terror was not all about OBL. It's a worldwide network that wants everyone dead and everything destroyed. But Mitt cheapened his answer with something I suppose he had to say about OBL: "But he has got to pay and he will die." (He's been dead for a while, Mitt.)

Some Politico.com reader, I think her name was Nancy, wanted to know if McCain would ask Tancredo to serve as his director of INS. Said John: "Short answer: no." He also promised to follow OBL "to the gates of hell."

My eyes were starting to glaze – I was missing the Yankees game – when Matthews asked Mitt about who is allowed to receive the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. Mitt said that the Catholic bishops could do what they thought they should do and the government has no business interfering in church matters. The First Amendment guaranteed this: separation of church and state. We can debate this "separation," but a least Mitt knows what it means.

Ron Paul said he wants to run a non-interventionist foreign policy much like President Eisenhower's.

One of the Politico.com fellows, a guy named John, drew on the attitudes of a high school student when he asked Sam Brownback: "What's with your party and all this corruption?" The argument he was making, in his childish way, was that the entire Republican Party was corrupt and had violated the public trust. This is a slander, but no answer was needed. John had made his partisan point, which is an amateurish, childish, perverse way to run a Presidential debate.

But this wasn't a Presidential debate.

For the record, both Brownback and Trancredo explained that corruption was not unique to the GOP.

I'm not sorry I missed the end of the fable. The Yanks had to finish sweeping a doubleheader, and pretty soon that sportscaster guy would join Matthews and Howard Fineman to tell us what is this about that, how we look to the hardcore lefties after a non-debate which was chained to a corpse (MSNBC).

Dean Rice, who runs the Draft Fred Thompson 2008 campaign, had this to say:

"We heard many references this evening to President Ronald Reagan. In fact, we watched a 90 minute sprint between podiums by candidates trying to lay hold to the Reagan mantle... Only one person in the potential field today carries that same confidence. Although he was not on stage tonight and may the only candidate not comparing himself to Ronald Reagan, voters are anxiously awaiting Fred Thompson to enter this race.”

Indeed, there was a Fred Thompson-shaped hole on that stage. The Reagan dynamic will be Thompson's. When Thompson gets in, Thursday night's farce ("debate") becomes a footnote to a footnote to the story of the time before Fred Thompson joined the race. Let's now forget about Matthews, that sportscaster guy, and the Politico John fellow prattling about cooties and boogers. (Politico Jim was a lot better, but again, this is unimportant.)

What's important is that Matthews and Politico John got in their shots, we were reminded that Jim Gilmore and Tommy Thompson are running, and the Yankees won.