Letters to the Editor
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"Thompson" needs clarification
The headline reads Fred Thompson won the debate and the first time "Thompson" is mentioned in the article it is not clear that it is Tommy, and not Fred, who has not announced his candidacy and was not at the debate.
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What a surprise
Joan Walsh didn't like any of the republican candidates?
Wow, there's a surprise.
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Where were the Haircut questions?
The Democrats got asked about a bunch of unimportant nonsense that makes idiots like Drudge titter, but have no import to the business of the nation. So where was the questions about Romney's favourite scientologist books? Or his magic mormon underwear? Or McCain's recent strolls through Baghdad markets? Or Giuliani and ferrets?
Even MSNBC can't seem to treat the two sides evenhandedly.
I don't blame them per se, they're just buying into the Drudge memes of treating Democrats as unserious lightweights and leaving all the 'adult' questions to the Republicans.
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Ex-Men
Exacerbators, exaggerators, exclusive, exanthema, exasperators, excessive, excommunicable, excreta, excrescent, excruciating, execrable, exenterators, exhausting, expropriators, extrajudicial, extravagant, extraneous, extremist, extinct.
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Ron Burgundy
Good call on Romney being Ron Burgundy. During the debate i texted a friend saying "Romney is Burgundy to Rudy's Wes Mantooth." Think about it.
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3 of them?
Wait, three of the debaters said they didn't believe in evolution? I can understand the moral arguments against abortion, but doesn't being anti-evolution just mean you're retarded?
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Follow up to the evolution question
No, refusing to believe evolution doesn't mean you're stupid, ignorant, or superstitious. It just means you're hoping to answer the follow-up quesiton, "Does the Earth go around the sun?"
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A Message to You, Rudy
Giuliani was wildly uneven, sometimes shaky, sometimes strong, but never presidential,
Bald guys don't get to be President, Mr. Giuliani. If they did, it's like saying the terrorists have already won.
Sometimes American superficiality in political matters is a blessing. You lose, no matter how well you poll in Pennsylvania. Didn't you see the other nine guys? They all have hair.
If Giuliani really wanted to stand out from the others, he'd have come out in a wig and a dress. He probably could have swayed independents if he'd done that.
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The Best Question of the Night
And a question that should effectively end the Republican Party as it exists today....Deservedly.
Unfortunately, unlike with some of the less interesting questions, this one was only posed to Tommy Thompson (the man who smilingly assured us that the anthrax came from the soil...remember?).
It should have been asked of Every Republican up there.
Can you guess ?
Okay here it is....I'm paraphrasing:
"Governor Thompson, do you think a boss should be able to fire his employee just for being homosexual?"
Thompson answered that, yes, it should be the prerogative of the boss. That an American citizen should lose his job if he is found to be a homosexual and his boss doesn't approve.
Every man up there should have been forced to confront this question !
And then it should have been pointed out that THIS is literally what the Republican Party and "conservatives" mean when they prattle on about "freedom".
Because the word "freedom" is used casually by people to mean a million different things, and this has led to an incoherent politics in our country.
This is not an accident, because guys like Rove depend on the concept of "freedom" being malleable, so as to be able to trick people who don't really appreciate what "conservatives" mean when they bandy this ever popular and useful term, which has tragically lost all meaning through this trickery.
When this gets down to two people in a few months, the above question about American citizens being subject to losing their livelihood because of being homosexual...if asked, will justifiably seal the fate of the Republican candidate and the whole party.
And Rightly so.
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The winner is...
...you, Joan Walsh, for your engaged analysis. Though Giuliani might not win any constituency with his talk about abortion, if he becomes the nominee, he will be doing this country a service simply by showing that abortion doesn't have to be a on issue for this country and the Republican Party doesn't have to be so monolithic about it. Sam Brownback deserved credit for saying that he would support a pro-choice Republican candidate.
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"It would be okay."
*...doesn't have to be a on* issue.
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H o t b u t t o n
Why can't one send the word h o t b u t t o n ? It gets shortened to "on" dang it.
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@ Gwool
Indeed.
What's to like?
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uzeromay...
Apparently Salon employs a Net nanny that takes umbrage at the phrase spelled out by the first seven letters of the word you are trying to type, i.e. hot b*tt.
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These Debates Should Be A Recruiting Opportunity For Those Who Support This War.
I would be far more impressed when seeing and hearing those who still support the war in Iraq if the candidates led a swearing in ceremony for their family members joining up to fight this war. steve, usn, ww2
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Response to Jay Diamond on Freedom
The Republican party does stand for freedom. You just have to understand what those freedoms are.
They don't stand for the individual liberties that we often talk about when we say freedom. When Tommy Thompson says employers should be able to fire employees who are openly gay, he stands for the freedom of the employer to discriminate against his employees.
Similarly, the Republican party stands for the freedom of the federal, state, and county governments to force a woman to have a child. They stand for the freedom of governments and schools to force religion on people. And they stand for the freedom of the federal government to put people in secret prisons indefinitely without trial or access to an attorney.
This kind of misdirection has been around for a long time. I often hear people talk of the Texas war of Independence as being about freedom. They won't say exactly what the freedom was they were fighting for: the freedom to own slaves. The US Civil War was about the freedom to own slaves in the western territories.
Whenever someone talks about freedom, I have learned to ask "freedom to do what?"
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jay diamond...
Freedom, for the entire history of this country, has never meant freedom for all (white men only), just like "right to life" doesn't apply to all (war and death penalty), or going back a few thousand years, "thou shalt not kill" (unless you're killing Phillistines).
This group of Republicans is in this lineage of selective ideals. So full of self-contradiction. As soon as you look under the hood, or challenge any of their high-minded declarations, they fall apart and stutter.
You make an excellent point, and one that some Americans have always seen as a truth.
However, many Americans don't bother to parse the rhetoric, or understand the foundations of our Democracy, they just can't wait to wave their hands in the air for some mind-numbing generality spoken in the most manly fashion by their favorite new hero.
Also, Chris Matthews is an idiot. One of the most casually superficial "news" people ever. Mr. Softball.