Last night in Tampa, Florida was another horrible debate. Brian Williams asked a series of pointless questions about sugar subsides, manned missions to Mars, and the candidate’s “path to the nomination.” I’m not going to go into it any further detail because we’ve written about these dumb leftist moderators ad nauseum. Who can be shocked that Brian Williams turned in another Gossip Girl performance?
The most obvious change in last night’s debate was the audience. There was no cheering or jeering. I prefer the hushed tones instead of the near gladiator style debates that were held in South Carolina. These are supposed to be debates and not an angry mob scene. Newt Gingrich is threatening to pull out of the remaining debates if the crowd continues to be silenced. It’s understandable that Gingrich prefers the red meat style debate audiences since he’s basically carved a path to the nomination by seizing the heart of the mob.
In 2008, I thought that the Democrats brainless adulation of Barack Obama could never be topped, but the rise of Newt Gingrich is at least a close 2nd. Americans are increasingly skipping the details and settling for the narrative. You see this in almost every avenue of American culture. We are prisoners of the moment.
Gossip Girl or serious journalist? After watching the Republican debate on MSNBC last night I'm leaning toward Gossip Girl.
As usual, Henshaw made some good points about last night’s Republican debate, though I’m not sure I agree with his winners and losers. Alas, it is quite difficult to come up with an objective list of winners and losers since a debate isn’t quite as easy to score as, say, a boxing match. And even boxing matches that declare a winner without a KO are sometimes controversial.
Even so, here’s my list of winners, losers and those who fought to a draw… Winners: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. Losers: Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman. Draw: Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum.
Part of my problem scoring and declaring a winner is that these debates don’t allow for much explanation by any one candidate, thus they tend to stick to rhetoric and key words. Even when it’s narrowed down to two candidates during the Presidential race, debates don’t offer much substance.
Still, the candidates could make a move away from the pack by better articulating core principles. In the case of a conservative candidate, one of these core principles, and what is perhaps the most important one, is the role of the Federal government.
Ron Paul and Herman Cain came closest to hitting the mark on this, though no one’s really listening to them. The others danced around it and the moderators probably don’t know the difference between Federalism and oligarchy, though they certainly know how to gossip (“A friend of your campaign manager said that Rick Perry is a wussie. Why is he a wussie?”)
There was a golden opportunity at this debate to point out that the governors in the debate did the best they could with the circumstances specific to their states and the needs of their constituents. And that’s the point. Who best to make decisions for the welfare of its citizens than local and state government? And, who is more accountable to their voters than local and state government?
You can yammer on and on about this and that you did as governor, or that this governor had this much or this little job growth in his state, but it’s just a waste of time. Just once I’d like to see a candidate point out that an ever-encroaching Federal government endangers the individual and his liberty. The growth of the Federal government is, in fact, a move toward oligarchy; rule by the few over the many. Moreover, it’s an oligarchy that favors certain people and groups over others, destroying the concept of equality before the law. The bailouts, stimulus and health care bamboozles are striking examples of this inequality created by cronyism.
Still, I don’t know how much you can blame the candidates for their shallow answers. The moderators made it quite difficult to provide any depth by purposely pitting one candidate against the other and framing the questions to make it sound as if they were defending the indefensible. “Rick Perry, Romney said or did this. Respond,” or, “Why are Republicans so heartless?” Bullshit. Ask them a real policy question.
Speaking of BS, how about that brief foray into “science”? The Charlie Crist-like Huntsman took a sideways swipe at Perry, playing the ever-so-reasonable-and-moderate Republican card. He’s pro-science because he has not an ounce of skepticism about the wild-eyed lunatic-fringe claims of a madman (Al Gore)?
Meanwhile, Perry’s response was less than adequate. Once again, a golden opportunity to put the nail in the coffin of the climate change debate wasted. Will anyone rise to the occasion and point out simple logic? As a reminder, logical and thought-provoking arguments Perry could have made include:
- The sun may have something to do with our climate, given that it accounts for 99.86 percent of the mass of the entire solar system
- The climate has been changing for more than four billion years; it always has and it always will. This would mark the first time in the history of earth that a species was willfully unable to adapt to a changing climate. Who’s more stupid, the dinosaurs who simply didn’t know they needed to adapt, or human beings who drown in extremely slow-rising water because they thought the government was going to do something about it?
- Do Climate Changelings/Global Warmongers really believe that we have the power to regulate the earth’s thermostat, and if we did, what is the proper setting?
- Further, if we had the power to regulate the climate, who makes the decision about where to set the thermostat and who benefits from the settings? Will the entire earth be like San Diego, or will only those parts the enviro-nitwits care about live eternally in San Diego’s climate?
- Global warming is far better for life on earth than is global cooling. You can look it up. But the beauty of “climate change” is that you can claim the climate’s changing no matter what’s going on globally or locally. A little warmer this year? Climate change! Unusually cold another? Climate change! No change? Climate change!
The whole thing is absurd, as is the case for a larger and more meddlesome federal government, and yet it’s nearly impossible to get a cohesive, coherent and concise answer on either subject from the candidates. Immigration? I know that Rick Santorum’s grandparents were immigrants, but that doesn’t tell me jack diddly about his plan.
Perhaps most absurd, and also the best part of the debate, was the commercial produced by Californians for Population Stabilization, which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that there’s a special interest group for anything and everything these days.
Californians for Population Stabilization is against legal immigration. That’s right, legal immigrants are taking jobs away from Californians and Californians for Population Stabilization wants to end this travesty. What’s next? Californians against Seeing Eye Dogs and other Working Dogs?
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryd1-xco9cg
I just finished watching the GOP debate on MSNBC. It was a painful exercise. There are too many people on the stage that have no chance of being elected. The questions were often from outer-space. Every question to Ron Paul was a joke. It’s as if Brian Williams has never heard libertarian theory. He asked Paul about abolishing FEMA, TSA, and Homeland Security. All of the questions were phrased as if “you don’t really believe that do you?” Paul has a reason to be insulted. However, Paul also claimed that a border fence is dangerous because it could be used to keep Americans in the country!
I suppose the biggest talking point from the debate will be Rick Perry stubborn insistence that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. The fact that this is even remotely controversial is the reason the nation is in the predicament it’s in. The fact that Mitt Romney is willing to pander on this issue may mean he’s more electable, but ultimately I’m not going to vote for someone who believes that Social Security is successful when it’s taking over 12% of my income, income that I’ll never see a dime of in the future.
My last observation is on climate change. Jim Huntsman, who had no business being on the stage, claimed that 98 of a 100 climate scientists agree that humans are causing the Earth to warm at an alarming rate. Instead of pouncing on this ridiculous claim Brian Williams asked Rick Perry to name prominent skeptics! Really unbelievable stuff. That’s pretty much all I have. It was nice of MSNBC to have a Hispanic news anchor come on stage to ask questions about illegal immigration Apparently, MSNBC believes the only issue Hispanics care about is illegal immigration. Lean forward!
Winners: Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry
Losers: Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, MSNBC
The Jimmy Carter administration was a disaster for the United States. Many of his policies are still causing problems, and he’s been a foreign policy headache for subsequent Republican and Democratic presidents.
Ever since Carter was kicked out of the White House he’s had a chip on his shoulder. It’s a common statement about Carter that “he’s done a lot of good since he left office.” Without a doubt, who can forget about Habitat for Humanity? It’s almost impossible to forget because Carter loves to remind everyone how great he is. Which begs the question… is President Carter doing these things out of charity or to enhance his public image?
Obviously, I can’t know the heart of a man and if ambition drives a man to do good things, so be it. However, Carter was still a bad President and his policy idea are still dumb. Carter wants Americans to accept his good deeds as justification for his bad, irrational ideas. The more Carter speaks the more idiotic he appears. In a recent interview NBC’s Brian Williams asked Carter if he’s recieve “his due” for his post-presidency activities. Carter’s answer is telling:
No. I– I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents. Primarily because of the activism and the– and the injection of working at the Carter Center and in international affairs, and to some degree, domestic affairs, on energy conservation, on– on environment, and things of that kind. We’re right in the midst of the– of the constant daily debate.
So many times intelligence is mistaken for wisdom. The same could be said of President Obama and his speech about the Middle East earlier this week. These ideologues are bad leaders because they lack the wisdom to lead. Carter was a poor president and he’s been the most partisan anti-American post president in the history of the United States. He’s not looking out for the United States’ interest. Carter’s only priority is to rehabilitation his own image. Please Mr. President, go back to Atlanta and stick to watching Braves games. You’ve damaged the country enough for ten lifetimes.
Club Soda and I were having our normal Daily Plunge debriefing (“normal” being used here as a relative term), and we came to a startling realization. In a few short months, Obama’s turn in the White House has significantly lowered the stature of the office itself. The man is all over TV, mostly in a less-than-official capacity. He had his own segment on ESPN and I’m sure his wife will soon become a member of The View. Yes, I jest to a certain degree, but what must other presidents be thinking? President Clinton must be regretting that he didn’t get his own show on Showtime or at least become a judge for the Miss America pageant.
This is the dream job Clinton always wanted
I bring all of this up because of the president’s work for NBC this week. NBC news has become the Mouth of Obama. It’s difficult to decipher where the administration ends and the leg tingle begins. Over two nights the White House let NBC news anchor (and self-tanning expert/connoisseur/aficionado/enthusiast) Brian Williams spend time with the President. In turn, Obama talked about Conan O’Brien and SNL. It has to be awesome when the sitting president plugs NBC shows at the behest of NBC. Let’s not forget that the president was just on the Tonight Show just a few weeks ago. Does Obama secretly own stock in GE?
This got me thinking… why not bring back The West Wing as a reality show? The show was a hit with sophisticated audiences, and now that NBC is part of the Obama administration it’s a match made in Heaven, or at least in the joint policy meetings Obama’s team holds with NBC and GE. NBC is currently the last-placed network. They’re totally desperate and Obama is desperate for good press, but simply turning the West Wing into a reality show isn’t going to be good for ratings. I have an idea for the first season that will ensure the show’s success…
The main story arc would be the appointment of Martin Sheen as a special advisor. Sheen would officially change his name to Jed Bartlet. I can’t imagine Sheen would have much of a problem with this; he’s already changed his name before. Bartlet’s appointment would cause immediate tension with the cast, since everyone’s favorite everyman, Joe Biden, is a loose cannon. In order for this show to be perceived as reality it has to have some basis in truth. The fact that Biden is a loudmouth moron is already established. Obama would soon be forced to ask for Biden’s resignation and would then appoint Bartlet as Vice President. This would cause a Constitutional crisis because Bartlet has been twice elected president on TV and may be Constitutionally ineligible. Other plot points would include Obama’s appointment of Tom Brokaw to the Supreme Court and NBC’s peacock replacing the Bald Eagle as the national symbol.
I can see it already. It’s coming this fall; The Real West Wing. See what happens when politicians stop being polite and start getting real!
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