There was a Debate on CNN for some kind of Political Thing the Other Day

A scorecard of the event can be found here.  I don't usually view these things as "scorable" because it's kind of subjective, but I think it's a pretty good summation.

I didn't pay much attention to the debate and no one fatally screwed up. So I left it to one Charles P. Pierce to inspire me to actually write about what I thought was interesting about this debate.  Here's Pierce:

We will get to Newt Gingrich's legendary close call with humanity, and the political price he's already paying for it, in a moment. But we must pause right here at the top to commend the Wingnut Undead for their lively presentations last night at the 9,875th of 10,623 scheduled Republican debates. Given the sponsorship of the vampire clans at the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, it's true that the only way you could have kept them out of Constitution Hall would have been to garland the joint with garlic. But, mother of mercy...

Edwin Fking Meese?


The man who was breaking the heads of the civilly disobedient in Berkeley forty-one years before the Cal-Davis cops discovered what fun chemical weapons are? Ronald Reagan's devoted porn sleuth? (Elsewhere on The Meese Commission was Father Bruce Ritter, the famous priest who ministered to the runaways in Times Square, and the angry prophet against neon-lit sleaze, who later was discovered to have been sharing his penis, as well as the Lord's grace, with his charges.) The attorney-general who gave the Iran-Contra crooks just enough time to do the shredding? The man who once said that Miranda protects only the guilty, that the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence was a"pro-lesbian" group, and that employers should be able to discriminate against employees with AIDS if the employer decides he's protecting the public health? I'd even forgotten how very much I disliked this guy, and now here he comes, suddenly appearing in the present, with Fred Kagan, and the chin-impaired sadist Marc Thiessen, and Paul (My War, Your Kids) Wolfowitz, and Meese gets the first question of the night? It was like seeing Bela Lugosi turn up in the newest Twilight film.

What inspired me?  The history of the GOP. Today's GOP contenders seem so inadequate in some ways. Can we really say that Mitt Romney is quite the two-faced flip-flopper as even John McCain? Could Ron Paul really hold Barry Goldwater's socks?  Does Rick Perry have the mental aptitude of a George W. Bush--or even a Dan Quayle?


The answer is--why not?  The field this year is no worse than the batches of Republicans of the past who brought us Watergate, or Iraq-gate, or Iran-Contra, or the Iraq War.  That the polls have drifted in favor to a series of heroes--from Bachmann, to Perry, to Cain, to Gingrich, only suggest a yearning for some figure who epitomizes the goals and appetites of the party in a more sublime way, with less obvious dumb-fuckery.  I'm sure there is a group of people who are saying "The hell with Chris Christie or Mitch Daniels--bring us Dick Cheney!"

I think it wouldn't even be too much to see a Cheney/Cain ticket, with Cain playing the role of Spiro Agnew. But if we can't have Cheney (who may, by now, have settled down to enjoy his grandchildren and his war-profiteering gains in an undisclosed location, with no positive need to return to public life), why not even Sarah Palin? Now that we are at the point of the campaign where merely pronouncing the names of the countries properly, or even knowing the countries from continents, is an achievement, the Wasillan Wonder and her vast experience of seeing planes go by and being prepared in the event that they were Russkies seems a ponderous resume-filler, indeed.

Once upon a time, a Colin Powell might have been able to run. That window was very brief, indeed. The field belongs to the  Feith, Norquist, Krauthammer, Kristol, Podhoretz-type people. Sound-biters. Talking-pointers. I regret to say--lowest common denominator dupes. Constitution-phobic torture-boosters and economic fantasists.  Warhawks and chickenhawks.

We even heard Herman Cain suggest he wanted Kissinger in his cabinet with the same unawareness as McCain suggesting he would even prop up a deceased Alan Greenspan to run the Fed.

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. This is not your airhead party? These are not your lackluster candidates?  (Yeah, I know. Obummer. He's got 99 problems and so far--um, he's been fixing them. So shush.)