Republican Debate: The Good News and the Bad News

Let's deal quickly with the good news: the Republicans provided Democrats with considerable footage demonstrating their sheer foolishness.

Here's the bad news: one of these idiots could be the next president of the United States.

Here's a quick summary of the top three:

McCain mangled his words on several occassions and was frequently incoherent; I'm sorry to say it but he's clearly slipping. On the occassions when he was understandable, it was usually meaningless boilerplate that could have answered dozens of questions without actually saying much. For one brief moment, we saw the old McCain when he said he believed in evolution but had no trouble seeing God's handiwork when he was at the Grand Canyon; but that McCain started disappearing in 2004 when he decided to jump aboard the Bush express.

Mitt Romney was the Stepford man. He makes Hillary Clinton's triangulations look human and natural. It was embarrassing to see him rush up to be the first candidate to shake Nancy Reagan's hand after the debate. A slick man. Very slick.

Rudy Giuliani was probably the most dangerous man on the stage. In many ways, he presents himself effectively and can probably get away with campaigning as a sort of conservative moderate. But recent appearances suggests that the unitary executive nonsense that Cheney and Bush have been pursuing the last six years would continue unabated under Giuliani. There's not a doubt in my mind that Guiliani is a bully at heart. That Bernard Kerik was his police chief speaks volumes. If Giuliani continues to do well in the polls, I'll have more to say about the ugly qualities he shares with Bush and Cheney.

I enjoyed watching my wife while we listened to the debate. She has a wonderful way of rolling her eyes when the Republican candidates say stupid or dishonest things. It was appalling that several of the candidates thought Scooter Libby should be pardoned. It was embarrassing how unwilling these guys were to criticize the most failed president in our nation's history. The list goes on. I think the reader has the general idea.

If the reader will pardon an imperfect analogy, these candidates are like fools running for mayor while the current mayor has delegated the job of repairing a dam upstream from the town to his cronies and some corrupt campaign donors. The engineers with integrity say the dam is cracking, largely because of cheap construction materials; it's also been raining for twenty days and these Republican fools are telling the townfolk the best way to solve the town's problem is to fill in more potholes. A lot of good filling those potholes will be when the dam breaks.

The dead giveaway was the attempt to ride on Reagan's coattails. Reagan's presidency was finished nearly twenty years ago. The world has changed a lot since then. Reagan spent his presidency ignoring a number of problems that are beginning to have a significant impact. Reagan ignored the environment, he ignored the need for a real energy policy and he had a lousy eye for honest government officials. The nostalgia for Reagan perfectly reflects the fantasies that seem to drive the right wingers who control the Republican Party these days. We need people in the White House who don't live in a bubble, who have a chance—at least a chance—of connecting to reality.