What Fred did between naps today

Fred Thompson is plum tuckered out of the race. So sad. I had planned to use the words “plum tuckered out” many more times about His Fredness. He says, “I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort.” Having made this what now, Fred?

Republican debate, wherein is revealed why marriage is an important institution

Republican debate, South Carolina, this time Fox generously allowed Ron Paul to participate, though they spent the whole evening asking him questions like, “Are you insane, or just a big ole loser? Thirty seconds, please.”

Paul was asked to disavow his supporters who believe 9/11 was a government conspiracy. He wouldn’t do it, although he did say that personally, “I’ve abandoned those viewpoints.”


What viewpoints has he not abandoned? Paul told his fellow candidates that they need to “understand the importance of Austrian theory of the business cycle.”

And that’s quite enough about Ron Paul.

McCain kept insisting that “I’m called the sheriff by my friends in the Senate who are the appropriators.” Of course, he’s from Arizona, where I belief it’s traditional for sheriffs to be batshit insane fascists. McCain added, holding back a tear, “and I didn’t win Miss Congeniality. And as president, I won’t win Miss Congeniality, either.” Will you settle for Sheriff Congeniality?


Huckabee said the Second Amendment is “just as precious” as the First. The precious, the precious... He was not asked if the 3rd Amendment was more or less precious.

Not having soldiers quartered on you.

You should know that, people.

There was a fascinating theological discussion over what would happen to Iranians who dared challenge the United States Navy. Huckabee said they should “be prepared that the next things you see will be the gates of Hell” while Thompson said, “I think one more step and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they’re looking forward to seeing.” Which is it, gentlemen, virgins or gates of hell?

McCain was asked what he would have done if he’d been the captain. “If I’d have been the captain of the ship, I probably would have assessed the situation as it was at the time.” All those years in the Navy really paid off, huh John?

Later, butting into a question about Israeli-Palestinian peace being answered by Ron Paul, McCain irrelevantly interjected, “Could I just make a comment? I’m not interested in trading with Al Qaida. All they want to trade is burkas. I don’t want to travel with them. They like one-way tickets.” Yeah, like your track record with landing planes is so great.


Twitt Romney said that foreign policy in the 20th century was like a game of checkers, but now it’s more like 3-dimensional chess. Which I think means the Vulcans are totally gonna beat our asses.

Wait, could Romney be a Vulcan? A Mormon Vulcan? Because that would explain a lot.

Romney: “My whole life has been about bringing change to things I have touched”. Um, eww.

Huckabee again cited Trucker’s Magazine, bragging about Arkansas’s improved roads. Also, “We had no bridges falling down in Arkansas.”

Asked about the thing about wives submitting graciously to their husbands, Huckabee complained that “everybody says religion is off limits, except we always can ask me the religious questions.” Yeah, funny that, reverend. And he said that his views about the inferiority of women (or wives, anyway) “has nothing to do with presidency.” And he objected to the rest of us even paying attention to something that “really was spoken to believers, to Christian believers.” How dare he not be left in hypocritical peace to say one thing to Christian believers, and another thing to the rest of us? He said that anyone who knows his wife, “I don’t think they for one minute think that she’s going to just sit by and let me do whatever I want to.” So I guess she’ll be going to the gates of hell for not submitting graciously, hmm reverend? And he claimed to have really meant that husbands and wives submit to each other. Which is not what he meant. At all. “Each partner gives 100 percent of their devotion to the other and that’s why marriage is an important institution, because it teaches us how to love.”


Thompson: “We need to be a nation of high fences and wide gates, and we get to decide when to open the gate and when to close it.” Fred gets hours of entertainment playing with his garage door opener.

Thompson says employers should be required “to use the modern technology that we have now so that they can, in effect, push a button on the front end and find out whether or not someone is legal”. So he wants to install buttons on aliens, is that it?


Huckabee says that it is possible to get rid of all 12 million illegal aliens: “People got themselves here, they can get themselves to the back of the line.” Boy, illegal aliens really do all the jobs Americans don’t want to do.

Can’t you keep it in your pants just this once, Rudy?

Republican debate: If you tell a half-truth as if it is the full truth, then it can become an untruth

Hillary’s new theme is the contrast between talkers (Obama) and doers. This seems a little dangerous, since Bill Clinton was very much a talker and very much (ahem) a doer. Sometimes both at once, if I remember the Starr Report correctly.

Another day, another presidential debate (at least it was just one today), this time without Ron Paul, kept out by Fox. Missed the little guy. He and Dennis Kucinich, who was excluded from the ABC debate yesterday, should have held their own debate.


Romney explained that one of “the great lessons of Ronald Reagan” is that cutting taxes grows the economy.

Romney seriously got in Huckabee’s face, demanding to know if Arkansas’s taxes went up while he was governor. Huckabee dodged (rather ineptly) four times before admitting that they indeed went up, blaming a court order forcing the state to improve education. “You know, education is a good thing for kids,” he informed Romney. Also roads. “People want roads,” he informed Romney. Especially roads leading the hell out of Arkansas. Later, when Romney tried to question him again, the Huckster refused to talk to him any more, and looking rigidly straight ahead, said, “I believe I’ll let Chris [Wallace] be the moderator here.”


Romney finds it “kind of offensive” that D’s are attacking corporations which are creating jobs (in yesterday’s debate, he demanded of McCain, “Don’t turn the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys”).

Giuliani said that R’s are better than D’s at getting people out of poverty, and that they just need to tell poor people that, and to do so in as condescending a way as possible. For example, as mayor, “I would go into the neighborhoods where I was being castigated for work fair and I would say to them, ‘I’m doing workfare because I love you more. I care about you more.’” He says that the proof of his effectiveness in getting people out of poverty was that when he left office, a lot fewer people were receiving welfare. Quod erat demonstrandum.

McCain on Bin Laden: “I know how to get him, and I will get him.” Asked later to elaborate on how he’d “get him,” Mickey C said he’d do it by expanding intelligence capabilities and by making it the top priority. That’s so crazy it just might work!


Huckabee wants the border fence built “with American labor and American materials.”

Huckabee commits heresy: “Even Ronald Reagan can make mistakes” (on giving amnesty to illegal aliens).

There was a lot of talk about the relative merits of a senator or a governor becoming president, especially in foreign policy. Giuliani, who was neither, cited his experience in, oh, what was that event again? And that “a Saudi prince handed me a $10 million check and wanted me to use it as a criticism of American foreign policy, I handed that check back to him and told him what to do with it”. See? a born diplomat. Also, he threw Castro and Arafat out of the UN’s 50th anniversary celebration, so don’t say he has no foreign policy experience.


McCain said he never heard Romney criticizing Rumsfeld. That’s because I was a governor, replied Romney, adding that he thought there were intelligence failures in Iraq. For example, not realizing that Iraqis didn’t want to be invaded. “There were some who said there would be dancing in the streets when we came into Baghdad, and there was, but for a short period of time.” He added that “We were understaffed by a dramatic amount.” “Understaffed”? I believe the military have their own term, Mr. CEO. The Trader Joe’s I went to a couple of days ago, that was understaffed.

The Huck repeated that Guantanamo is “too darn good,” so he wants to shut it down, and it’s not because of what the world thinks, “I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks.”

The Huckster’s “vertical leadership” thing is really beginning to irritate me. “[P]eople are looking for a positive
president who leads not so much horizontally — left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican — but vertically, up, not down.” What? WHAT??

Huckabee on Romney’s attack ads: “if you tell a half-truth as if it is the full truth, then it can become an untruth.”

Ain’t it the, uh, truth.

Republican debate: Not subject to a bunker mentality

First of three presidential debates this weekend. Kill me. Transcript.

In the foreign policy segment, the candidates all praised George Bush and his glorious little war, and ganged up on Ron Paul for failing to understand America’s true role in the world: innocent victim.


Giuliani: the Islamic threat has “nothing to do with our foreign policy,” but comes from their “perverted thinking.” Later, looking for examples of terrorism against non-Americans, he cited as an act of Islamic terrorism the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Romney: “The president is not arrogant. The president is not subject to a bunker mentality.” Huckabee, who asked if Romney had actually read all of his article before attacking it (Romney said he had, knowing no one would believe he read it any more than they believe Huckabee wrote it), took the opportunity to backtrack, saying that what he meant by “arrogant” was Rumsfeld’s insistence that Iraq could be occupied with a small military force.

Romney said the US and its allies (the US still has allies?) should “move the world of Islam to modernity and moderation”. This is a guy who spent two years unsuccessfully trying to convert the French to Mormonism.


(They’ve all been reading up on radical Islam. Romney, who told Paul he didn’t understand what radical jihad is, talked about someone named Sayyid Cuetip. Huckabee, of all people, did a better job of pronouncing Sayyid Qutb’s admittedly challenging name.)


Fred Thompson propounded this exciting concept about when the US should involve itself in the affairs of others nations: “We should only go in where we should and where we’re able to.”

At which point Jeri Thompson sighed.

McCain: “I didn’t say we needed a secret plan for withdrawal [from Iraq].” Secret plan? Who has a secret plan? I think he’s remembering Nixon’s secret plan for getting out of Vietnam.


I still don’t know what Huckabee means by “vertical leadership.”

Romney got increasingly testy at the jibes against him, as when McCain called him the candidate of change. Romney is quite thin-skinned.

In the segment on immigration, which as always mostly involved a learned lexicological discussion of the meaning of the word amnesty, McCain went out of his way to invoke the sacred name of Joe Lieberman, who says that anyone who says McCain supports amnesty is a liar.


Thompson, asked about oil company profits, says he “takes note” when they profit, and he takes note when they lose money. When has an oil company ever lost money? Well, an oil company not run by George W. Bush, obviously. Thompson says high oil prices are from supply and demand, and China going all over the world making deals with dictators. Thank God we only get our oil from democracies.


What’s up with that weird thing with Giuliani’s eyes?

Eisenhower started the program to put a man on the moon? Whatever, Rudy.


Huckabee wants a $1 billion prize for the first person who comes up with a car that can get 100 miles per gallon. Oh Huck, you’ll have to do a lot better than that: Exxon-Mobil’s bounty is $10 billion for the head – just the head – of the first person who comes up with a car that can get 100 miles per gallon.

The Huck says dictators in the Middle East and Venezuela are “enslaving” the American people.

The culture of being outdoors

I’ve seen several headlines along the lines of “San Francisco Zoo Baffled by Tiger’s Escape.” Well, since they haven’t found any welding equipment, grappling hooks or lock picks, I’m going to venture a guess that Tatiana climbed and/or jumped out.

Amsterdam police are protesting a new rule that they not use cannabis whilst off-duty. Says the chairman of the police union, “Police should not be put in pigeonholes in which they can no longer be themselves.”

REACHING OUT TO REPUBLICAN VOTERS BY SHOOTING SOMETHING SMALL AND INOFFENSIVE: Mike Huckabee shot a pheasant in Iowa, saying, “Maybe it will show that I certainly understand the culture of being outdoors.”


The Huckster explained that it’s hunters who are the true conservationists. “It’s the hunters who actually keep the wildlife alive. A lot of people think that when you hunt you’re destroying the wildlife.”

REACHING OUT TO WOMEN VOTERS BY ASKING THEM TO PIPE DOWN, THERE’S A GAME ON, AND OH YEAH COULD YOU GET ME A BEER, HON?: Fred Thompson, asked about his abortion policy, turned naturally to... a football analogy: “We’re on the 10-yard line, and it’s like if we can’t score a touchdown on our own 10-yard line ... we won’t run a play that will take us to the other guy’s 20-yard line. I’m talking about doing something that can get done.” Which supposedly is meant to communicate something about restricting abortions at the state level. Then, “we can collect our marbles and see where we are then.”

Thompson also agreed with an Iowan bigot that hearing Spanish-language options when you call the power company is “sickening.” Also, having to press 1 for English leaves him plum tuckered out.

Pity the poor photo-journalists

A man arrested on suspicion of growing cannabis was fed lunch in the holding cell, including what turned out to be a nice hash cake for dessert. The cake was evidence in another case, stored in the same refrigerator as the meals for prisoners. The surprising thing is that this occurred in the Netherlands, where one rather thought that cannabis-growing and hash cakes are entirely legal and that prisoners are routinely served hashish-based desserts. What is the world coming to?

Huckabee’s alliterative slogan is “Faith. Family. Freedom.” (in that order, presumably). Thompson’s is “The Clear Conservative Choice: Hands Down!”, the hands down bit referring once again to his refusal to do a show of hands at the debate, which they really are going to base their entire campaign around. I mean, sure, McCain spent all those years in a prison camp, but Fred Thompson stood up to the editor of the Des Moines Register.

Spare a sympathetic thought for the news photographers. Do you think AP photog Charlie Riedel wakes up in the middle of the night screaming?



Or AFP’s Paul J. Richards?

It’s a wonder what takes place here

Today Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, because, he said, dependence on oil “contributes to greenhouse gas admissions.” He’s admitting it now? Usually he just sniffs theatrically and looks accusingly at China.


Unlike Fred Thompson, who is still making a big deal about not raising his hand at the debate when asked if he believed in global warming, as if he took some great courageous moral stand. On Hannity and Colmes today (in a bit which was immediately emailed out by his campaign), he said he won’t raise his hand until Chief Justice Roberts swears him in. ‘Cuz hand-raising plum tuckers him out. If elected, he’ll take more vacations than Reagan and Bush put together.

Bit of excitement at the Eisenhower Executive Office Buildings this morning, as a fire broke out while Cheney was burning the videotapes of CIA torture sessions he kept in his man-sized safe to view during, ahem, “sessions” of his own.


In the afternoon, Chimpy went over to Bethesda. “It’s an honor to see the troops who have been wounded,” he said. Well, then it’s all been worth while. “But our citizens should never question whether or not the nurses and docs and caregivers are giving it their all in a professional way. They’re saving lives, and they’re healing hearts at the same time. And so it’s a -- it’s a wonder what takes place here”. Just aaalllll worth while.

Hey, stop calling Bush “Chimpy” already! We in the ape community take umbrage at that! Umbrage I say, sir! Good day to you, sir!

Stop the Hand Shows!

I’ve just received an email from the Fred Thompson campaign with the above subject line (I added the exclamation point; obviously Fred Thompson doesn’t do exclamation points, they plum tucker him out). In it, Fred’s campaign manager says Ronald Reagan’s “I paid for this microphone” line in 1980 was a “defining moment” and that “Fred had a defining moment on Wednesday in the Iowa debate, when he refused the liberal moderator’s demand to raise his hand to say yes or no to a complex question. The similarities were incredible.”

Republican Debate: You can’t really respect ‘em if you’re killing ‘em in the womb

I thought we were done, but today there was another tedious debate (tedious transcript), there’s always another tedious debate – indeed, it seems that there’s a Democratic debate tomorrow, which I will happily watch and write about upon receipt of one million (1,000,000) dollars via the PayPal link. Even with the added crazy that only Alan Keyes can bring, it was not exciting, is what I’m saying.

The first question was about the national debt. Giuliani said that he’d solve the national debt by cutting taxes. Oh, he also wants to cut non-military spending 10%, which I guess is what you say if you don’t want to go through all the tedious effort of actually examining programs and figuring out what should be spent on them. Asked how people affected by those cuts should manage, he said they’d have to “figure out other ways to do it” and not rely on “the nanny government”. This is the guy who had cops walking his mistress’s dog.


Romney said the sacrifice he’s calling for from the American people is to “let the [government] programs that don’t work go. Don’t lobby for them forever.” Gosh, that doesn’t sound like very much sacrifice at all.

Asked who is paying more than their fair share of taxes, Alan Keyes said we need to get rid of incumbent politicians (Keyes wasn’t big on saying anything relevant to the actual questions). McCain said that poor people don’t pay any taxes except for the payroll tax, which will come as a surprise to poor people. Huckabee said we should have a “fair tax,” “and that means the rich people aren’t going to be made poor, but maybe the poor people could be made rich”. Whatever the hell that means. Romney said he doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about the taxes rich people are paying. Thompson said he’d like to be in Romney’s situation so he wouldn’t have to worry about taxes either. Romney said he’d like to be in Thompson’s situation. Thompson said Romney’s gettin’ to be a pretty good actor. This is what passes for wit in a presidential debate. Make that two million (2,000,000) for me to watch tomorrow’s debate. I don’t want to have to worry about taxes either.


Giuliani says we should have a flatter tax that you could file on one page. He then held up a piece of paper to show us what that would look like, in case we were unfamiliar with the concept.

Huckabee on regulation: “I can’t part the red sea, but I believe I can part the red tape.”

Asked whether the US should have economic trade with human rights abusers, McCain said hell yes, promising to “open every market in the world to Iowa’s agricultural products.” Of course he said it as a throwaway applause line, but, putting the question of human rights abuse to one side, don’t other countries have the right to set their own trade and economic policies, to not take Iowa’s agricultural products against their will?


Romney: “We call it global warming, not America warming. So let’s not put a burden on us alone and have the rest of the world skate by.” Oh I don’t think anyone will be doing much skating.

McCain said we can solve global warming with “capitalist and free enterprise motivation.” Which is like O.J. Simpson looking for the real killers.

We’ll never know what Fred Thompson thinks, because he refused to do a show of hands on whether he believes in global warming.

On education, Duncan Hunter thinks the problem is “bureaucratic credentialing” of teachers and that Jaime Escalante was hounded out of school by the Cylons unions. Alan Keyes thinks it’s that judges drove God out of the schools and that children aren’t told that their rights come from God not from the Constitution or our leaders. Huckabee wants to unleash weapons of mass instruction, which he also said in the last debate, and which shows incredible tone-deafness. Who is impressed by a line like that? Ron Paul thinks it’s the federal government and the Dept of Education getting in the way. Thompson thinks it’s the teachers’ union.

Keyes: “People talk about our prosperity, but you can’t really respect ‘em if you’re killing ‘em in the womb, it doesn’t make any sense.”


Giuliani says he has led an open, transparent life. Although what he seems to mean is that he keeps getting caught.

Republican debate, Hispanic-style: It’s no picnic to be living as an illegal immigrant

At the Univision debate (transcript), which would have been a lot more fun if Tancredo had shown up, the Republican presidential candidates evoked a special bond (or “peculiar connections,” as Romney put it) between their party and Hispanics. Romney noted that “Hispanic Americans serve in the military and care about our military,” while Duncan Hunter compared JFK, a Democrat who failed to provide air support at the Bay of Pigs, with Ronald Reagan, a Republican who supported El Salvador’s government and death squads as they massacred peasants and nuns.



Everyone thought immigration should be more like a credit card. Huckabee: “If you can get an American Express card in two weeks, it shouldn’t take seven years to get a work permit to come to this country in order to work on a farm.” Don’t leave your hovel without it. Romney: “Isn’t it amazing in this country, with the fact that American Express or Visa or Mastercard can tell you that fast whether the card is authorized or not,” but there’s no system for employers to verify immigration status.

Everyone was asked whether it was right that children with American citizenship because they were born here should be separated from their parents. No one really answered, mostly suggesting that the issue should wait until after the border is secured or the Second Coming, whichever comes first.

Giuliani: “It’s no picnic to be living as an illegal immigrant.” Although many of the agricultural products utilized in a picnic are picked by illegal immigrants. That’s what we call a paradox.

Asked about foreign rulers, Giuliani said “I actually agree with the way King Juan Carlos spoke to Chavez.” McCain actually quoted the hereditary monarch in Spanish (“Por que no te callas?”) (yes, the king used the familiar tu form, as if speaking to a child). Fred Thompson, asked about Castro having survived 9 American presidents, said, “I’m going to make sure that he didn’t survive 10 U.S. presidents. (LAUGHTER)” Ha ha, assassination is funny!

McCain on health care: “Ronald Reagan said nobody ever washed a rental car. And that’s true in health insurance. If they’re responsible for it, then they will take more care of it.” So if the government provides health coverage, we’ll all stop washing, is that what you’re saying?



The Huck uses the health care discussion to offer that he wouldn’t mind shipping Michael Moore to Cuba. At the last debate, he said he’d put Hillary on the first rocket to Mars. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

The Huck also sent this important message: I am wearing an orange tie.



On education, Thompson says “if families would stay together, if fathers would raise their children, especially young men when they get into troublesome ages, we would solve a good part of the education problem in this country.”

Asked what role Hispanics will play in the development of American society, most suggested that they stop being so Hispanicky and become more like reg’lar Amurricins. Only McCain, from Arizona, said that “We will be enriched by their music, their culture, their food, their language”. The Huck: “Our equality is not based on our ancestry, our last name, it’s not based on how much money we make.” Last name, Huckabee, you don’t need me to make a joke out of that one. Hunter said their role is to become Republicans. Fred Thompson praised Hispanics’ work-ethic. You don’t need me to make a joke out of that one either. He added, “The Hispanic community is known for their values. They know that marriage is between a man and a woman, for example.” Romney: “The Hispanic community, like all other communities in this great nation, need to come together and strengthen America. Because this is the land of the brave and the home of the free. And Hispanics are brave and they are free, as are all of the people of this great nation.” Just as long as they’re not free to bravely mow his lawn.

Above the fray

In re-runs of last night’s debate, CNN censored (without mentioning that they were doing it) the question posed by the gay retired brigadier general, and the candidates’ responses to it, because he has links to the Clinton campaign, which as we know invalidates both his question about gays in the military and his 43 years’ experience as a gay in the military.

Among the emails I’ve received from various Republican presidential campaigns today claiming victory in the debate is one from the Fred Thompson people, claiming he “was able to stay above the fray and out of the constant bickering between others around him.” Dozed off, did he?

Republican debate: working in a small tight unit

Transcript (somewhat faulty), part 1, part 2.

Another YouTube debate and, oh good, the first video is a song.

Romney says Giuliani had a “sanctuary city,” except, occasionally, a Haitian would have a plunger shoved up his ass. Rudy says Twitt had a sanctuary mansion. Romney asks if he, as a home(mansion)owner, was supposed to go out and ask for the papers of any worker with a “funny accent.”


Tancredo rejects the idea that there are jobs no American will take, not even mowing Romney’s yard with a funny accent.

Huckabee, attacked for Arkansas’s merit-based college scholarships for undocumented aliens, says if he hadn’t gotten a college education, he might be picking lettuce in Mitt Romney’s yard.

Ron Paul, your weirdo followers think there’s a secret conspiracy to merge the US, Canada and Mexico, do you? Paul: heh, heh, no of course I don’t – the conspiracy isn’t a secret.


McCain takes another swipe at a program to study the DNA of bears, making a so-so joke that he doesn’t know if it’s for paternity or a criminal matter. What the hell does he have against bears? Other examples of wasteful spending he’s fought against in the Senate? Children’s health care.

Oh good, an animated Uncle Sam. Sam wants to eliminate income tax in favor of a national sales tax.

McCain says that Ron Paul, with his “isolationism,” would have allowed Hitler to come to power. In fact, McCain was in Iraq last week (I’m still waiting to see pictures of him in a helmet and flak suit), and evidently all the American soldiers stationed there gave him a message for Ron Paul: “and their message to you is... let us win.” If all 160,000 soldiers have a candidate they’re supporting, McCain was too modest to say who that might be.


Paul points out that it is not isolationism not to want to invade other countries. But he completely evades the whole Hitler thing. What were you doing while Hitler came to power, Congressman Paul, and why won’t you talk about it?

Chuck Norris is in the audience.

A guy in Manhattan Beach eats some corn and asks if the candidates would cut farm subsidies. All candidates: thanks, we’d like to win in Iowa.


Tancredo video: I am prepared to take on Hillary Clinton, or at least tiny snippets of Hillary Clinton taken out of context.

Thompson video: white lettering on black background just like Law & Order credits. Attacks Romney as a hypocrite on abortion and Huckabee as a hypocrite on taxes.

McCain video: I am also prepared to take on tiny snippets of Hillary Clinton taken out of context. Out-of-context Hillary is toast!

A guy with an assault rifle asks if anyone supports gun control. Anderson Cooper only puts the question to one of the candidates, possibly because of his name. Duncan Hunter says “from Bunker Hill to New Orleans to the rooftops of Fallujah, the right to keep and bear arms and use them effectively is an important part of America’s security.” I didn’t know the Second Amendment applied to Fallujah.

Asked what guns they own and which is their fave, Thompson says he owns several but won’t say what they are or where they are. McCain, interestingly, owns no guns.


A video made by a black father and son in Atlanta asks about black on black violence. Which Romney, racist prick that he is, blames on black children being born out of wedlock: “Well, one, about the war in the inner city -- number one is to get more moms and dads. That’s number one. And thank heavens Bill Cosby said it like it was. That’s where the root of crime starts.” Yes, thank heavens Bill Cosby gave cover for all the racist pricks.

Asked by a woman from Texas who called herself “Journey” whether women who have abortions should go to jail, everyone skirts (so to speak) the question by saying that that would be up to the states. Paul reminds us that he was an obstetrician, says in 30 years he never saw a medical need for an abortion, which suggests that some of his patients died needlessly. Thompson, while saying it’s up to the states, added that in state laws on post-viability abortion now, “It goes to the doctor performing the abortion, not the girl, or the young girl, or her parents, whoever it might be.” The questioner said nothing about the people seeking abortions being “girls” or “young girls.” Thompson, sexist prick that he is, just automatically infantilized them.

Q: “The death penalty, what would Jesus do?” Huckabee: fry ‘em, like I did as governor. Pressed, he added that Jesus was too smart to run for public office, ha ha.

Do you believe every word of the Bible is true? Giuliani: some of it’s allegorical, especially the stuff about not cheating on your wife. Romney: the Bible is the word of God. For some reason, he doesn’t mention the Book of Mormon.


Romney video: “ordinary isn’t good enough,” so go with slightly creepy.

Giuliani video: hey, I used to be mayor of New York, did you know that? Has a joke about “the city’s nemesis, King Kong.” Doesn’t mention 9/11.

Romney refuses to say if waterboarding is torture. McCain upbraids him for that, while Romney looks at him with a fixed look of slightly sour bemusement. McCain says “life is not 24 and Jack Bauer.” Life is Chloe O’Brien, however. Life is so Chloe O’Brien.

On Iraq, Thompson says “Too many people in this country are vested in a scenario of defeat. I’m vested in a scenario of victory”. 1) That language is lifted directly from Joe Lieberman. 2) Maybe Frederick of Hollywood should be avoiding words like “scenario.” He sounds like a producer who doesn’t understand why Rick can’t get the girl at the end of Casablanca.

Asked about using 9/11 excessively, Giuliani denies it.

Huckabee video: I’m Mike Huckabee, and God approves this message.

Retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr says he is openly gay. So why shouldn’t gays be in the military? Duncan Hunter says that most people who join the military are conservatives with Judeo-Christian values like, you know, hating queers, and they shouldn’t be forced to, and I swear to God I’m quoting, “work in a small tight unit” with gays. Gays in the military is evidently another issue Romney has flip-flopped on. McCain says don’t ask don’t tell is “working” (for whom, he does not say), and seems to say that Gen. Petraeus has told him this.


Asked about the space program, Huckabee says he’d send Hillary to Mars. Tancredo says Martians are trying to steal our jobs.

Ron Paul video: “There’s something going on in this country, and it stinks.”

The last question is about why Giuliani supported the Red Sox after the Yankees lost. Ten minutes after this thing was supposed to have ended, and they’re torturing us with a baseball question?

Reject the extreme within them

The Annapolis Conference (motto: “Lower Your Expectations... No, Lower Than That... Lower... Keep Going...”) is about to begin. George Bush has issued a statement about it: “I remain personally committed to implementing my vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.” Yes, George, it’s all about you and your “vision.”

Twitt Romney says that the real problem is “broader than in that one hot spot as we help the Muslims themselves reject the extreme within them.” Why can’t they all be bland and boring (but with a slightly creepy undertone), just like Mitt?

Fred Thompson spent the post-Thanksgiving weekend shoring up his position as the gun nuts’ fave’rit candidate, going from a gun store in New Hampshire to a gun show in South Carolina to a hobo hunt in an undisclosed location. Here, a bored AP photographer takes a, so to speak, shot of the Fredster behind a row of rifles, kinda like prison bars.


New Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that he will join the Kyoto Accords. Also, he plans to get to the bottom of the whole toilets-flushing-counter-clockwise thing.

In my heart, I am not a dictator

Musharraf explains: “In my heart, I am not a dictator... The day when there is no turmoil in Pakistan, I will step down.” See, and you thought he intended never to step down.

And in an interview with the NYT (MP3), he says he put Benazir Bhutto under house arrest because of threats to her by a “foreign intelligence agency.” So that’s okay, then. And he accuses her of being “confrontational” and creating “negative vibes.”

Speaking of negative vibes, an email from the Fred Thompson campaign attacks the Massachusetts health-care plan as socialized medicine at its worst. For example, did you know that small business owners will be “fined $295 per employee who isn’t enrolled in Romney’s government-mandated health care plan”? Even worse: a mere $50 co-pay for abortions.

The LAPD has dropped its plan to “reach out to the Muslim community” by drawing up a map of where they all live. The LAPD, whose racial and ethnic sensitivity is of course legendary, had not expected there to be any opposition to the mapping plan.

Bush told Fox Business that his tax cuts on the rich made the tax code more progressive.

Asked if the surge in Iraq is working, Bush said that it is, “and it’s measurable.” He also made his usual not-at-all-sexist reference to the “Iraqi mom,” who “wants to raise her child in peace, and that, if given the chance -- given what looks like a secure future -- that people will make the necessary changes to live in a -- coexist with somebody else that may be, you know, an adversary, in a peaceful way.”

Bush says Musharraf “has got Pakistan on the road to democracy” and “I do believe he understands the importance of democracy.” Also, the importance of proper vibes.

Bush, asked if he had restored a sense of dignity to the office of the presidency, said, “History is going to have to judge.” He added, “I go to work every day in the Oval Office.”

Thompson and McCain sound the alarm against the UN and hippies and bears (oh my)

I just received yet another email from the McCain campaign on the major issue of our times: Hillary Clinton’s support for a subsidy to the Woodstock Museum. He repeats that no one can be president if they supported it. It’s right there in the Constitution: you have to be a natural born citizen, have achieved the age of 35, been 14 years a resident within the United States, and not have voted for any damned hippie museum.

And that $1m is not the only “shameful spending” in the multi-trillion-dollar budget (hint, Maverick John: Guantanamo, the Iraq War, security for certain senators visiting markets in Iraq...). He also names and shames $74m for peanut storage, which may or may not be justifiable, who knows, but doesn’t strike me as outrageous on its face, and $3m to study the DNA of bears. Hey, I think studying bear DNA is a great use of taxpayer dollars, don’t you? What does McCain have against bears?

An email from the Fred Thompson campaign brings a warning from Fred that the UN (well, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights) is planning to come here and take away all our guns. Fred says, “the UN report remarkably denied the existence of any human right to self-defense, evidently overlooking the work of Hugo Grotius, the 17th century scholar credited as the founder of international law...” Also, gun control leads to genocide, as in Bosnia and Rwanda: “Disarming civilians under the guise of international human rights law will only lead to more such genocides by ensuring that civilians can never defend themselves! It would be funny if it weren’t so perverse.”

Political exchange of the day: Fred Thompson

At a campaign event in New Hampshire:

Q: I’m proud to say that in January 2008 New Hampshire has passed a law facilitating civil unions here. ... What is your belief for federal civil unions to be passed?

FRED THOMPSON: Soviet Union?

Q: No, civil unions.

THOMPSON: Oh. No, I would not be in support of that.

Republican debate: There’s nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president

Transcript. Today’s pictures once again illustrate the many hand gestures of the Republican Party.

Thompson makes a fat joke about Ted Kennedy.

McCain says Romney trying to “fool” people about his own record and McCain’s, says the American people can’t be fooled. Maybe, but you’re running in the Republican primary...


Huckabee says “most” of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergymen. Wrong wrong wrong. There was just one.

Tancredo says Reagan brought freedom to El Salvador. I’m pretty sure he mistook El Salvador for Nicaragua. Not right in either case.

Guys, tell us what you really think about Hillary.


Romney wants a “national standard” for marriage. Possibly the Osmonds. Giuliani only supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage if there is more “judicial activism,” and so loves marriage that he performed 210 marriages as mayor, and “They were all men and women. I hope.”

Huckabee on health care: “when all the old hippies find out that they get free drugs, just wait till what that’s gonna cost”.


Giuliani thanks Florida for blowing the 2000 election.

Thompson says the Democrats “try our troops in the newspapers”. What is he talking about, the Haditha Massacre courts-martial?


McCain says he fought Hillary’s attempts to fund a Woodstock museum. Says he’s sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event; he was “tied up at the time.” So was Tancredo, but it was by a call girl. (Update: as I was writing this, 63 minutes after the end of a debate, an email arrived from the McCain campaign with “I was tied up at the time” as the subject line, so that’s what they want you to take from this debate.) Says “no one can be president... who supports projects such as these.” So Hillary is disqualified from the presidency by her support for the Woodstock museum.


Just as Thompson recently talked about the “Soviet Union” as if it still exists, McCain wants to install a missile defense system in “Czechoslovakia.” Says again that when he looked into Putin’s eyes, he saw three letters (one in each eye?): KGB. In Cyrillic, one presumes.

Guys, tell us what you really think about Reagan.

Thompson says Nancy Pelosi injected partisan politics by bringing up Armenian genocide. How is Armenian genocide partisan?


Er, I was eating during this debate, so I forget who thinks that if everyone was forced to buy private health insurance, the cost would be cut in half [Update: Giuliani]. And several of them said that Turkey was perfectly within its rights to invade Iraq, but I forget which ones. Sorry.

Thompson interrupts Brit Hume’s wrapping up to finish answering a question about whether he’s lazy, says that he’s not lazy because he was a father at 17 and he has two children under the age of 4 now. New Thompson slogan: Not Too Lazy To Fuck, Just Too Lazy To Put on a Condom.