Republicans Say The Darndest Things

Whenever Fox hosts a debate, I'm always stuck watching a couple of minutes of O'Reilly before it starts.  I really can't stand him.  Arrogance has to be earned through superior intelligence, but O'Reilly's combination of crazy arrogance and astounding stupidity really defies description.  Also, there appears to be a muffin controversy going on, I'm sure I don't want to know.

Tonight's debate is sponsored by Fox News and Google, and being streamed on Youtube.  Fox anchors Chris Wallace and Bret Baier are doing the questioning, along with Fox "anchor" Megyn Kelly.  Also, there's a new guy on the stage.  Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is joining in the fun tonight.  Let's do it.

9:04PM: Perry promises that we'll see a more extensive jobs plan from him, ya know, eventually.

9:05PM: Mitt Romney has a 59 point economic plan.  For a minute there I thought he was going to go over all 59 points, but he stopped at four.  In the earlier debates, it was a seven point plan.  Mitt Romney will keep adding points to his plan until we promise to vote for him.

9:08PM: Bachmann says "people deserve to keep every dollar they earn".  Is she proposing a 0% tax rate?  Somebody had to do it eventually.

9:10PM: Santorum boldly comes out against public worker unions.  It makes sense that Rick hates teachers, some of them know science, and boy does Rick hate science, and gays, and women.

9:11PM: Gingrich says you should have to participate in a training program in order to collect unemployment insurance, because "people should not get money for doing nothing".  Training for what, Newt?  There aren't any fucking jobs!

9:14PM: Huntsman basically dismissed solar and wind energy as crazy future stuff we can't do right now, and sadly, he's probably right.  Ya know, I don't think Ronald Reagan gets called an idiot enough for taking the solar panels off the white house.

9:15PM: Wallace asks Cain about his hilarious 999 tax plan.  Herman understands how much Americans hate math.  Math tests would be much easier if all the answers were just 9.

9:17PM: Question for Ron Paul from a woman named Brandy and a guy in a backwards hat.  Ron promises to veto any bill that violates the 10th amendment.  Of course, that's only going to happen in the crazy alternate universe where Ron Paul actually gets to be President.

9:19PM: Not a good start for Gary Johnson, who says he's run for two political offices in his life, but he was counting the Governorship of New Mexico twice.  He reminds me of someone, but I can't put my finger on it yet.

9:21: We just learned that 44% of Fox viewers think you aren't rich if you earn $500,000 a year.  That concerns me, and so does the fact the Fox's percentages added up to 101.

9:27PM: Romney keeps referring to Perry's book.  Perry's face while he's doing it says "go ahead Mitt, keep tellin em you know how to read, and they'll keep votin for me".

9:28PM: Poor Mitt, he had one good idea as a Governor, and now he has to pretend it never happened.  By the way, is this a debate or a book fair?

9:30PM: Does Mitt Romney believe President Obama is a socialist?  Romney called him something worse, suggesting that the President is sort of European-y.  Ouch.

9:31PM: Kelly asked Huntsman about how 66% of people agree with raising taxes on the wealthy.  Instead of just pointing out that most people are idiots and we shouldn't be putting economic policy up for a majority vote, he went off on a whole taxes=freedom tangent.  I think Jon's been hanging around these morons too long.

9:34PM: Cain says the EPA has gone wild.  Worst "gone wild" video ever.  Then he finishes with "the solution is...fix it!"  OK then.

9:35PM: Gingrich always seems like he's angry that someone dared to ask him a question.  Crap! I forgot to award the prize for the first mention of Ronald Reagan, I think Huntsman got it about ten minutes back.

9:36PM: Everybody gets 30 seconds to bash the Department of Education.  I think my favorite part was Mitt Romney's suggestion that the teachers unions hire more teachers.  That's going to be kind of tough when we're busting the teachers unions and eliminating all federal funding for public education. 

9:43PM: Bachmann says she'd go over to the Department of Education and "turn out the lights".  I think she's got how you eliminate a cabinet department confused with how you put a parrot to sleep.

9:45PM: Ohhh, we're talking about the stupid border fence again.  This is like Groundhog Day, only instead of hilarious Bill Murray antics, I'm getting terrible Republican ideas over and over again.

If anyone's interested, here's what I think about immigration http://somethingclever13.blogspot.com/2010/04/guardians-of-secret.html
I don't know if I'm right, but I know I'm smarter than these people.

9:57PM: Fox appears to be using google searches for coupons as a measure of economic health.  It didn't even lead to a question, it was just two minutes of random facts about what people are googling followed by a commercial break.  Sigh.

10:03PM: Foreign policy time.  Romney suggests we should never disagree with Israel, ever, on anything.  I guess that's one way to do it.

10:04PM: Everyone shut up and let Ron Paul talk! Damnit! What do I care what Herman Cain thinks about foreign policy?  Do they have a lot of Godfather's Pizza franchises in Jerusalem?

10:06PM: Perry is doing the old George Bush "watch me pronounce these foreigner names" trick.  They actually asked him a really good question about what he'd do if Pakistan lost command and control of their nuclear weapons.  Spoiler alert...Rick didn't answer the question.

10:07PM: Rick Santorum is the Mozart of warmongering.

10:10PM: Stupid question about the foreign aid budget.  Who screens these questions?

10:11PM: Somehow Bret Baier's question about our Cuba policy led Gary Johnson right back to his talking point about balancing the federal budget. 

10:12PM: They went through the whole foreign policy section without asking Ron Paul or the former ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, any questions.  Fuck you Fox.

10:16PM: The Republican crowd just booed a gay soldier.  Proud moment for Florida.

10:16PM: Santorum refers to repealing don't ask don't tell as giving homosexual soldiers a "special privilege".  Somehow, in Rick Santorum's mind, kicking gay people out of the military is making sex "not an issue" and treating everyone the same.  I've made this point before.  If you hate a certain group of people, just say that, and then we can judge you.  Don't stand there and try to convince me that not discriminating against a certain group of people is somehow "treating them special".  You are awarded no points, Rick Santorum, and may your imaginary god have mercy on your soul.

10:23PM: If Chris Wallace isn't going to make these people actually answer the questions, I really don't know what he's doing there. 

10:26PM: Bachmann refuses to apologize for suggesting that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation and defends herself by saying she never made that claim, she just repeated it when someone else said it.  It's like she's trying in each debate to say something stupider than anything she said in the previous debate.

10:27PM: I'm still a little concerned that Rick Perry has to defend his opposition to cancer, but he's doing a solid job of it.  I don't know if he actually gives a crap about preventing cervical cancer in Texas, but he's certainly doing a good job of seeming like he does.

10:30PM: Romney only has two gears, way too passive or super-dismissive asshole.  He's going to need to find a middle ground.

10:32PM: Perry seems a little frustrated right now, like he's tired of this.  I don't blame him, he just spent three minutes arguing with Michele Bachmann about whether or not preventing cancer is good.  But he gets this really whiny tone in his voice when he gets annoyed, he needs to work on that.

10:38PM: Hunstman just mentioned some small town sheriff from New Hampshire.  Now that's what I call pandering!

10:40PM: Mitt says we're the only people in the world who put our hands over our hearts during the national anthem.  That can't be true, can it?

I just want to make this point again, because we're smack in the middle of a Reagan-fest right now.  Ronald Reagan was a corporate shill who destroyed the middle class and set us on the path that led to the economic disaster of 2008.  If our economy never comes all the way back, and America is never quite the same, history will record that our downfall started at the moment of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.  This insidious idea that Reagan was some kind of great leader is one of the many things currently destroying the Republican party.

10:48PM: Why does Newt always have to make some kind of snide remark about every question?  Just answer the questions man. I know you're not that bright, but they aren't that hard.

10:51PM: The final question asked each candidate who on the stage they would choose as a running mate.  Rick Santorum suggested that he would run with Newt Gingrich.  I'm gonna go hide under my bed for a while now.