Republican Primary Debates: Gates of Hell Edition

Posted on January 10, 2008

I'm still reeling from tonight's Republican debate in South Carolina. I have never seen a debate that started with what looked like the Lawrence Welk singers belting out the national anthem beforehand. Really -- the women were in beauty pageant-style evening gowns. I thought I had tuned into the wrong channel (I was about five minutes late in tuning in). The evening went steadily downhill from there.

Here are some lowlights:

Ron Paul was allowed to participate, so all candidates took pot shots at him every chance they got. Brit Hume yelled at him. The other moderator hit him with a 9/11 Truthers question and demanded that he stop his supporters from saying our own government caused 9/11. Paul, looking mightily confused, said that he didn't believe that, but he couldn't help what people believed. He then went back to his dogged economic analysis.

John McCain went on and on about "Freedom of the Seas" puzzling everyone. Mike Huckabee said Iran could expect to see the Gates of Hell if they engaged our military. Earlier this week he told Jon Stewart he would chase Osama bin Laden to the Gates of Hell and beyond -- with a water pistol if necessary. Really.

Fred Thompson woke from his eight months' hibernation and lit into Huckabee for being a socialist/commie: raising taxes, talking to the teachers' unions, threatening to ban smoking nationwide, closing Guantanamo Bay, demanding social benefits for illegal aliens etc etc. In the coup de grace, Thompson accused Huckabee of espousing the platform of the Democratic party (big cheers from the crowd at this point).

Rudy Guiliani lays out his new tax plan (lower capital gains, ending the death tax, making the forms easier) and talked about how he handled illegal immigration as mayor of New York. Actually, Guiliani was the only one who sounded fairly sane and competent. He's stopped saying 9/11 so much: now it's "Ronald Reagan." Everyone competed to see how many times they could invoke the Gipper's name. Advantage: Guiliani.

Mitt Romney got in a crack about how Ron Paul had been reading Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's press releases, after Paul suggested there was no reason to start World War 3 over the Strait of Hormuz speedboat incident. Romney gets the Nerd Alert Award of the evening by describing international situation as "three dimensional chess" -- you know, the kind Kirk and Spock played on the original Star Trek series. Clearly, he's after the geek vote. Actually the "three dimensional chess" comment ("international affairs used to be like checkers but now they're like three dimensional chess") was quite impressive. Score one for Romney.

And the tap dancing award of the evening goes to Mike Huckabee, for trying to weasel out an explanation of the newspaper ad he placed saying how wives should be subservient to their husbands. He didn't get a chance to expound on his evolution views (there are "no apes in my family tree!"), but maybe it will come up in the next debate.