(1) "I don't know if it's torture, I'm not familiar with the specifics" is a completely unacceptable answer - we wouldn't accept that level of ignorance, willful or not, on other campaign topics. ("How would I balance the budget? I don't know, I'm not real good with money...")

(2) If it's *not* torture, then why do it? How are we to believe that waterboarding, among our other loathsome techniques, is effective if it's *not* brutal? How does anything less than torture get our worst, most dedicated sworn enemies (i.e. everyone in Guantanamo) to give up their secrets if it's no more stressful than a 7-11 Big Gulp? If it's not torture, it's not going to work, so why do it? If it is torture, and you believe it's effective and justified, then argue *that* position - don't hide behind euphemisms and implausible ignorance.

The more I see of Giuliani, the less I like him - Bush's swagger and misplaced confidence, combined with Cheney's deeply evil love of authoritarianism - I can't think of a single front-runner from any election in the past 100 years, from either party, who could be a worse president.

...I think it's entirely possible that they just didn't know the answers - that the questions made as little sense to them as a pop calculus quiz. Savage should've made it clear that it was an open-book test, and that they were allowed to get outside help.

Kudos to Giuliani for having the good sense to realize that his honest answers to those questions would creep people out as much as, if not more than, Romney's.

My current nightmare scenario - Huckabee wins the GOP nomination, but since he's "soft on terror," he needs a "strong" VP like Giuliani - but then I think, "What are the odds that we'd elect an affable moron and a creepy secretive fascist sidekick *twice*?"

From the book of John:

8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”

So Huck's not claiming to be Jesus here, just a bit player who's helping move things along.

Me, I really really hope that Huck, McCain, Romney, & 9iu11iani stay in it to the end, like it's looking they will. Not just because it's good theater to watch the factions they represent go at each others' throats (for all their Reagan worship, they seem to have forgotten his 11th commandment, no?) - but it's the best chance to finally drive a stake through the heart of that Frankenstein's monster (sorry for the Mixed Monsters Metaphor) that was created in 1980 when the social conservatives and the New Right climbed into bed together.

The comment from Lisa Schiffren, complaining that Huckabee's totally not respecting the separation of church & state, made me smile more than anything else has this week - crumble, unholy coalition, crumble! [Evil laugh sfx, keeping with the monster theme]

bobg

Carlson is clearly correct, that "journalists" who don't do the bidding of the powerful will lose access to the powerful, since there are so many other "journalists" lined up to take their place courtside - but how much is that kind of "access" worth?

Actual investigative journalism doesn't have to be (indeed, probably can't be) done from inside the royal court - all the Washington and campaign press corps are reporting on is what our government and government-to-be are *saying*, and for the most part what they're saying are self-serving interpretations of fact at best, and outlight lies the rest of the time.

You don't need access to Karl Rove to find out what the government is actually *doing* - he's not going to tell you. You need access to the administrative assistant down the hall from him, who saw that one memo he wasn't supposed to have seen, and remembers the details of it, and has a conscience. You need access to NEXIS/LEXIS and a good legal database and maybe an assistant who's handy with FOIA requests and tenacious about following them up.

Charlie Savage, who makes me proud of my howmetown paper, doesn't lob softball questions to that awful Presidential Spokesdrone, or suck up to Rove, or hang out by the barbeque with good ol' John McCain - because none of these lame activities would further the actual journalism that he performs. He knows, like every journalist should, is that there are exactly two times he should care about what a government official says - first, when it can be shown to be different from what that government office does, and second (because I'm all for fairness) when said official is asked for a comment on the story before it goes to press.*

*In case either Carlson or Russert are reading this - that part, where you call Senator Gasbag and ask for a comment on the story? You're not asking his permission to print it, and you're not submitting it to him for editing - for any non-journalists reading this, I'm sorry for belaboring the obvious.

He simply transitions, like the Catholic Church, from one state of infallible certainty to another one.

(As a Bostonian, I'll miss Savage's work for the Globe, but it's great to see him getting a wider audience)