A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

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Evolution and the Hand of God

More on the question of "Who Won the Republican Debate?": TNR collected the conclusions of ten bloggers from across the political spectrum.

nimh wrote:

More on the question of "Who Won the Republican Debate?": TNR collected the conclusions of ten bloggers from across the political spectrum.

That requires registration... any chance of copying and pasting, or just summarizing?

(Nice to see you!)

Conventional-Wisdom Roundup.
Who Won the Republican Debate?

Only at TNR Online | Post date 05.04.07

Last night, the ten declared Republican presidential candidates gathered at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, California for their first debate. With the Republican nomination even more wide-open than the Democratic one, it was a chance for the front-runners to shine and for those on the wings to grab a bit of the spotlight. Who won the first round? We've collected the conclusions of ten bloggers from across the political spectrum:

Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish: John McCain

McCain's strong criticism of a "badly mismanaged" war gave him the edge in my book. McCain was easily the strongest on spending. ... He also forthrightly supported evolution which puts him in the ranks of sane Republicans. ... I have to say I found Romney smarmy beyond even my expectations. The man will obviously say and do anything to get power or please a crowd. ... Giuliani is simply not a very impressive speaker or debater...

Erick Erickson, Redstate: John McCain/Fred Thompson

"John McCain won. Let's not dance around this. Mitt Romney shined, he stood out, he did well. Rudy Giuliani imploded. Rudy totally and utterly self-destructed tonight. He had many chances to get in good with the core base of Republican voters and ignored every moment. ... But McCain cuisine reigned supreme. He served up a dish of anger, a willingness to criticize, and a desire to fight--hard. ... But let's be honest. Who really won? Fred Thompson. None of the men on that stage really stood out tonight. Tancredo, Ron Paul, Tommy Thompson, and Jim Gilmore just made you wonder why on earth they were there."

Ann Althouse, Althouse: Mitt Romney

I thought McCain was fine. You could see he was trying very hard and seemed to have a lot of memorized lines. He had a forced tough-guy style of speaking. But I thought it was clear that Romney was the one who excelled. Was I a sucker for "smarmy"?

Roger L. Simon, Roger L. Simon: Fred Thompson

Who is winning the Republican Debate (near end)? Fred Thompson. By a lot. Much as I admire Giuliani and agree with most of his policies, this whole debate was dull dull dull. The wise man stayed out.

Joe Klein, Swampland: Mitt Romney

Here's my gimmick: I listened to the debate on radio. ... Second Impression: Mitt Romney is Reagan Reincarnate. People forget how damn smooth Reagan was, that caramel voice, that you-can't-ever-ruffle-me demeanor. Romney had that on the radio ... especially the aw-shucks ease of answer.

Mickey Kaus, Slate: John McCain/Ron Paul/Duncan Hunter

Judging just on affect, Blink-like, I thought McCain, Ron Paul, and Hunter did well. Giuliani a bit less well. Romney appears stiff and phony compared to the other front-runners. He made me want to go re-read Catcher in the Rye. Tancredo and Huckabee failed to make much of an impact at all. Brownback seemed to be talking about 50% of the time, but I can't remember a thing he said.

Kevin Drum, Political Animal: Not Mitt Romney

However, especially given my pro-Romney post of a couple of days ago, where I picked him as the likely GOP nominee, I have to say that he was the one candidate who most made me want to leave the room screaming. I guess now I understand the instinctive revulsion some people feel toward Hillary Clinton's speaking style. To me, Romney looked like the perfect Stepford candidate, pulled out of a mold somewhere and propped up on a stage where he'd stand there looking good and spouting endless pieties designed to say as little as possible and offend the fewest possible viewers. I half expected someone to come up at the end, remove his battery pack, and carry him off the stage. Brrr.

Taylor Marsh, Taylor Marsh: The Antidote To Right-Wing Talk: Ron Paul

Only one person looks and sounds like someone even remotely related to Goldwater conservatism, from which the conservative movement was born: Ron Paul. That gives you an idea of how dead the Republican Party is today, because Paul hasn't a chance. Ron Paul is the only one who acknowledged that the foreign policy that got us into Iraq is antithetical to the foreign policy history of America. The rest of the guys on this stage proved one thing: they're all a bunch of Bushies.

Ed Morrissey, Captain's Quarters: Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney won this debate. He looked relaxed, answered clearly, showed real warmth and a sense of humor, and actually answered the questions asked of him--even the stupid ones, to which I'll return shortly. After Romney, one has to think that Jim Gilmore and Mike Huckabee may have made some strides in breaking out of the third tier. They also showed that they could connect emotionally to the audience and give clear, thoughtful answers.

Paul Mirengoff, Power Line: John McCain

Frankly, I think John McCain had the best night. He seemed a bit nervous at first, but soon found his stride. He managed more ably than his chief rivals, McCain and Romney, to give answers that will appeal to a reasonably full spectrum of Republican voters without seeming to pander to anyone.

Giuliani Gave Six Times to Planned Parenthood

Presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani's effort to distance himself from his past support of abortion rights has taken a blow with the revelation that he contributed money to Planned Parenthood - the top provider of abortions in the United States.

According to Federal records obtained by The Politico, Giuliani and his then-wife Donna Hanover gave donations to national, state and city chapters of the organization at least six times in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999, with the contributions totaling $900.

"Giuliani's contributions could echo throughout the 2008 GOP nomination battle, as he seeks to lessen the political impact of his support for abortions rights - an unpopular position among social conservatives," Politico notes.

Campaigning last month in South Carolina, Giuliani declared: "I'm against abortion. I hate it. I wish there never was an abortion and I would counsel a woman to have an adoption instead of an abortion."

More recently, he said at the first Republican presidential debate that "it'd be O.K." if Roe v. Wade were overturned, although he also said he wouldn't have a problem if the Court let the decision stand.

Asked to reconcile Giuliani's opposition to abortion with his contributions to Planned Parenthood, spokeswoman Maria Comella told Politico: "Mayor Giuliani has been consistent in his position - he is personally opposed to abortion, but at the same time he understands it is a personal and emotional decision that should ultimately be left up to the woman."

But Clemson University political science professor Dave Woodard, a Republican, said contributing money to Planned Parenthood would put Giuliani "in a very precarious position, at least in the South Carolina Republican Party.

"An overt act of giving money shows support for a position. That can't be a mistake or misinterpretation."

In 2005, the last year for which figures are available, Planned Parenthood performed 264,943 abortions.

© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.

The ferret people wanted us to think

posted by williamyard on 2007-05-11 19:24:42

that the Dude was attacked with a "marmot" in the bathtub scene in "The Big Lebowski"--remember the Dude saying, "Nice marmot!"

As the movie showed, however, ferrets are, first and foremost, nonstop predators.

Now, New Yorkers are if nothing else the most creative weapons-users on the planet. Since 2003 alone, New Yorkers have killed each other using dildoes, bait, nitrous oxide, Lladro statues (three times in separate incidents, all in Queens), thongs, meat (mortadella in the Battery, a rib-eye in the Upper 80s), urine, and trash compacters.

Members of the animal kingdom thus employed include parakeets (asphyxiation), leeches (hemorrhage), bees (anaphylaxis--twice, once on Staten Island and once in the Village), green anaconda (internal hemorrhage), bullfrog (asphyxiation), and tapir, tortoise, and tuna (blows to the head--all, coincidentally, in Brooklyn).

We laugh at the Dude's jolly bathing predicament; meanwhile, those two deaths by ferret attacks in Jersey in 2002 and a third upstate last year have been hushed up to the point that one can find them only with great time and effort on LexisNexis (don't even waste your time on Google).

And now they want to legalize the damn things.

What's sad about this, of course, is that finally someone as obviously sane as Rudy Giuliani comes along, and he's greeted not with outstretched arms but with distortion, ridicule, and outright lies.

New York's fun profile of the tirelessly classy Judith Giuliani has this anecdote, in which Rudy comes across a bit like Ben Stiller trying to impress a woman at any cost:

Before they were married, he indulged her desire to dine regularly at Le Cirque even though the heavy cuisine tended to make him queasy. "It was almost required daily, going to Le Cirque for dinner, and Rudy used to throw up afterward, because the food was so rich," says a witness. "But she wanted to go, because it was the place to be seen, and the treatment by Sirio [Maccioni, the owner] was incredible."

If you're already feeling sorry for the former mayor, don't forget that this was during the period in which he was battling prostate cancer! But hey, Le Cirque is a place to be seen.