Debates

Yeah I still follow politics, I just haven't blogged that much about the events lately. I watched both the Democratic and Republican debates this week. I thought they were ok. For having 10 people on the stage they did much better than I expected at getting to some points, but as usual there isn't enough follow through.

Here's an example. Paul Begala rips apart Mitt Romney over his fictional answer to would you vote for the authorization for military force in Iraq knowing what we know now. He came up with a new twist to avoid an answer. He said it's a nonsense question because the way we would have known would have been for Saddam to allow inspectors in and if he allowed inspectors in we wouldn't have invaded.

Begala points out what everyone should remember (well he called the story bullshit), Saddam did let inspectors in, we all remember the name Hans Blix. He and other UN inspectors looked everywhere and didn't find any WMDs, though they had some suspicions and wanted more time. But it wasn't Saddam who didn't give it to them it was Bush (or more likely Cheney) who said no more time or games, we're invading. Begala continues...

"I couldn't believe it. I understood why Romney's Republican opponents didn't correct him. They need the public to believe the myth that Saddam wouldn't allow weapons inspectors in. In fact, Bush has repeated this same lie. Republicans want to blur the record, to revise history, so we don't have to confront the fact that if Mr. Bush had given the weapons inspectors more time to do their job, they would have concluded Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. No weapons, no threat. No threat, no war. But I was -- and am -- stunned at the lack of scrutiny by the media."

There were other things during the Republican debate that made me yell at the screen though thankfully by now I've forgotten them. The Democratic debate had less craziness but wasn't that interesting. The one thing that stands out for me was Hilary pointing out that under Clinton we had a budget surplus and Mike Gravel screaming that they did that by raiding the Social Security Trust Fund. It sorta said it all to me. Hey look we did better (and they did), but parts were still ugly.

Hilary also said a few times that they agreed more than they disagreed and that the important thing was the differences with the Republicans. And certainly the Republicans agreed with each other on most things, including pardoning Scooter Libby. Maybe Ann Althouse is right in asking, Why don't they put all the candidates in one debate instead of separating Democrats and Republicans?. 20 people on stage, yeah that would be fun.

I just find the whole Republican platform moronic, I'll write the details later but I disagree on Iraq, climate change, tax policy, privacy, torture, security, and energy. And on those topics I really do feel their positions are indefensible. I disagree with their abortion position too but I can understand it; but to be the pro-torture party? To not believe in the science of climate change (and 3 candidates disagree with evolution!)?

At points I chuckled at how the Republican candidates were distancing themselves from Bush. Glenn Greenwald points out in a typically great article, that much of the right wing media is doing so by saying Bush isn't really a conservative. Greenwald shows that this is just a function of his approval ratings and that many of these same people though he was the second coming of Ronald Reagan when his ratings were higher but his policies were the same.

Andrew Sullivan pointed me at Juan Coles post, where he says: "These guys got away with these hawkish fantasies because they bamboozled the poor evangelicals into believing they would support public morality, and bamboozled poor conservatives into thinking they would uphold small government. Instead, they are hitching their wagons to a multi-trillion dollar quagmire abroad and don't give a rat's ass about evangelical values."

We have 8 more months before the first primary. Seems like plenty of time to get into more depth on the issues; but in the same way 24 hour cable news channels never have enough time to go into any depth, I doubt this race will be different from any other. I just really want to see a Democrat debate a Republican and call them out on all they lies they spew. The Democratic candidate should get Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann to coach him or her. Then again, I think Aaron Sorkin is looking for a job.