Republican Debate: I’d rather be at the shooting range

Another debate, this time all rich white guys, like the Founding Fathers and Jesus intended.

Transcript. Pictures in this post illustrate the many arm positions of the Republican Party.

AND IF THERE’S ONE THING MITT ROMNEY KNOWS, IT’S TEPID: Romney says Obama deserves no credit for the 200,000 new jobs last month. “His policies have made the recession deeper, and his policies have made the recovery more tepid.”


OBAMA’S A COCK, IS WHAT MITT’S SAYING: “You know, it’s like the rooster taking responsibility for the sunrise.”

Sick Rantorum, as we shall be calling him today, says there’s no one who has more experience dealing with Iran than he does.

Gingrich keeps verbally hyperlinking to a NYT story about Bain Capital. Romney responds that the NYT is anti-free enterprise and then repeats that his claim that Bain created 100,000 jobs is net jobs, which it is not (and is a lie in other ways as well). Then he goes on some more about the importance of having presidents with business experience. Let’s see, the last president with business experience was George W. Bush, and the previous Republican with business experience was, if I’m not mistaken, Herbert Hoover. So how’d they work out?

Ron Paul says that Rantorum was corrupt as a congresscritter and then “became a high-powered lobbyist”. Sick tries to sound outraged by this, while being secretly pleased that someone called him “high-powered” for the first time in his life without it being immediately followed by “douche nozzle.”

Sick Rantorum: “I am a cause guy.”


Huntsman keeps talking about what a great job he did as governor, but interestingly never names the state of which he was the governor.

Gingrich is asked about Ron Paul calling him a chicken hawk. Gingrich says his father was in the Army for 27 years. I don’t think it works that way.

Ron Paul refuses to talk about the Ron Paul White Supremacist Newsletter and Jew-Hater Monthly, or whatever it was called. He says one of his heroes is Martin Luther King “because he practiced the libertarian principle of peaceful resistance and peaceful civil disobedience”. He says “true racism” (I guess as opposed to hotels putting up “No negroes” signs, which he thinks entirely their business) is in the enforcement of drug laws. Which it is, but so is opposition to the Civil Rights Acts, which his libertarian hero King supported.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is Ron Paul’s big move to get past the racist newsletter thing? I mean, on the one hand, he’s right about the drug war and its racist implementation, but on the other hand you can just hear him thinking, “What can I talk about that’ll get them off my back? I know! Those darkies really love their doobies!”


JUST LEAVE IT ALONE: Contraception comes up because Sick Rantorum has been making such a big deal about it lately. Asked whether states have the right to ban contraception, Twitt Romney acts like he’s never heard of such a thing, “can’t imagine” a state wanting to do so, has no idea if they have a right to do so, and it’s a silly question anyway. So basically he has no opinions on how the Constitution works or the right of privacy. Stephanopoulos points out that Romney went to Harvard Law School, whereupon Mittens pretends never to have heard of Griswold. But he adds that he wants to appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, which was decided on the same right of privacy as Griswold. But “Contraception, it’s working just fine, just leave it alone.”

Asked about gay marriage, Gingrich keeps referring to the “sacrament” of marriage and even to “a historic sacrament” (he’s a historian, you know). Sacrament is, of course, a religious term. “The sacrament of marriage was based on a man and woman, has been for 3,000 years.” (He’s a historian, you know.)


Sick Rantorum says this is a federal issue because “we can’t have different laws with respect to marriage.” Somebody should tell him that every state has its own divorce laws. He says the Constitutional amendment he wants would not only ban future gay marriage, but abrogate existing ones (like the 1,800 in New Hampshire).

Romney says we should discriminate against gay couples because “for a society to say we want to encourage, through the benefits that we associate with marriage, people to form partnerships between men and women and then raise children, which we think will -- that will be the ideal setting for them to be raised.” No one asks them why that view doesn’t entail a sexist, antediluvian view of gender roles.

Gingrich says the real question is anti-Christian (especially anti-Catholic) bigotry.

Romney says “John Adams, who wrote the Constitution, would be surprised” that gay marriage is said to be a right. He would be especially surprised because he was in France at the time, not writing the Constitution, and pining for Laura Linney.

WARP DRIVE, ENGAGE! Perry “would send troops back into Iraq,” which is being taken over by Iran. In fact, “We’re going to see Iran, in my opinion, move back in at literally the speed of light.”


Sick Rantorum: “The Iranian people love America because we stand up for the truth and say -- and call evil, which is what Ahmadinejad and the mullahs are, we call evil what it is.” Of course he also calls gay sex and abortion and birth control evil. Really, he calls a lot of things evil. Rather like Ahmadinejad and the mullahs, come to think of it. So what does he have against those guys?

BECAUSE YOU’RE MAKING UP NUMBERS AGAIN? Romney: “Our income per person in America is 50 percent higher than that of the average person in Europe. Why is that?” That’s probably just a metric thing.

AT WHICH POINT WE’LL BE FORCED TO MEASURE IN METRIC. AUTHORITARIAN, EUROPEAN SOCIALIST METRIC: Romney: “We’re only inches away from no longer being a free economy. ... But, really, this election is about the soul of America. ... We’re increasingly becoming like Europe. Europe isn’t working in Europe. It will never work here.” I think he’s saying that Europe doesn’t have a soul. Or at least that those damned Frogs didn’t convert to Mormonism when he gave them a chance.


Gingrich defends Obama from Romney: “A -- a little bit harsh on President Obama, who, I’m sure in his desperate efforts to create a radical European socialist model, is sincere.” See what he did there?

I DUB THEE A KNIGHT OF THE MIDDLE CLASS: Santorum attacks Romney for having used the term “middle class.” “There are no classes in America. We are a country that don’t [sic] allow for titles. We don’t put people in classes. ... That’s not the -- that’s not the language that I’ll use as president. I’ll use the language of bringing people together.”

SANTORUM WORKED IN THE METAPHORICAL COAL FIELDS OF K STREET: “I stood firm on those and worked, actually, in the coal fields, if you will, against this idea that we needed a cap and trade program.”

The killer question: if you weren’t here, what would you be doing on a Saturday night?

Perry would be at the shooting range, shooting off his guns at random and laughing maniacally.

Gingrich would be watching “watching the college championship basketball game.” (UNKNOWN): “Football game.” GINGRICH: “I mean, football game.”

Santorum would also be watching the basketball I mean football game, but he’d do it with his family, because he’s both manly and breeds like a rabbit. Mittens also loves him some football.

Ron Paul: “I’d be home with my family. But if they all went to bed, I’d probably read an economic textbook” (while masturbating furiously every time it mentioned the gold standard, I’m guessing).