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Debate open thread

I’m sick. I’m tired. I don’t care about Satan or phony theology — and I think the entirety of the remaining field should show up tonight with their joints out and all bagged up in some fancy Naturalamb Trojans. Adorned with red white and blue tassels.

But then, I’m a bit of a rightwing bad boy.

103 Replies to “Debate open thread”

  1. Pablo says:

    Teabagging!

  2. B Moe says:

    How many of these things have we had now?

    I can’t tell if this is a political campaign or a damn reality show.

  3. Abe Froman says:

    How many of these things have we had now?

    Probably something like umpteen. But I haven’t watched a single one of them, so I’m going with tonight is the first.

    Though I’m actually not watching this one either.

  4. motionview says:

    Sorry I’ve been amusing myself on another thread.

  5. Pablo says:

    Wait, you want me to stand up for the National Anthem in my skivvies? I don’t think so, John.

  6. motionview says:

    It’s leave on a high note, almost.

  7. motionview says:

    Good first question on debt > GDP

  8. Pablo says:

    It would be nice if King didn’t ask any of the questions.

  9. motionview says:

    John King – rather than espanding on the audience member’s debt question,King asks Romney, Newt, and then Paul to attack Santorum

  10. newrouter says:

    nor luap projection

  11. bh says:

    Paul is still on the stage for some reason.

  12. bh says:

    Called Santorum fake. Which is sorta funny from a guy who loads up bills with hometown pork and then votes against them.

  13. geoffb says:

    Will Paul get asked about his double billing? Probably not.

  14. JD says:

    Is it wrong of me to hope for a flaming Zeppelin crash into the auditorium?!

    I met Dave Navarro yesterday. Scrawny tatted up midget.

  15. motionview says:

    King: We’ll get to the future – later. Let’s talk about old crap.

  16. Blake says:

    First impression: dog pile on Santorum.
    ——–
    Santorum – “I was a conservative in a blue state.”

    Romney – me too, me too!!
    ——–

  17. JD says:

    Thanks, Jeff, for getting my account reinstated.

  18. JD says:

    John King sucks big fat hairy underage goat balls.

  19. bh says:

    I met Dave Navarro yesterday.

    No shit? He might be a headcase but… Jane’s Addiction.

  20. motionview says:

    Santorum – logical discussion of earmarks
    Romney – I didn’t follow all that, ban ’em.

  21. JD says:

    On my way to see Janes Addiction. He fucked Carmen Electra. So there’s that.

  22. JD says:

    Let’s go Zeppelin. Let’s go Zeppelin.

  23. bh says:

    You are a legend, JD.

  24. JD says:

    Tried to reach Mal the Ter, no luck.

  25. Pablo says:

    Does Paul have a fiscal argument that doesn’t include “these wars overseas”? “Earmarks? Well, wars!!!”

  26. motionview says:

    Stop attacking Romney Rick, you are punching down. Obama Obama Obama.

  27. Blake says:

    Romney’s people have to be snickering, because Romney’s getting help taking out Santorum from the other candidates.

  28. motionview says:

    In that last harangue it looked momentarily like Santorum and then Gingrich were laughing at Uncle Ron.

  29. bh says:

    Every time there’s a debate I again understand Newt’s appeal.

  30. bh says:

    (Romney was pretty good on the GM bailout, btw. I very seldom say something nice about him so there you go.)

  31. bh says:

    Big boos on the birth control question. Newt’s about to kill him.

  32. sdferr says:

    Did they figure out who the stick-figure satan object of worship Obama carries in his back pocket is yet? Valerie? Plouffy? How about how Obama manages not to wear his dick into a raw and bloody mess ass-fucking the nation with his accustomed frequency despite his refusal to use a lubricant? It’s like . . . . . . . a miracle, innit?

  33. bh says:

    Yep, Newt murdered him and Obama both.

    Why don’t more of them do this? Why? Why? Why?

  34. JD says:

    Did they figure out who the stick-figure satan object of worship Obama carries in his back pocket is yet? Valerie? Plouffy? How about how Obama manages not to wear his dick into a raw and bloody mess ass-fucking the nation with his accustomed frequency despite his refusal to use a lubricant? It’s like . . . . . . . a miracle, innit?

    Could we ask John King to use a version of this comment as a question in the next Presidential debate to Barcky?

  35. motionview says:

    The Left might have to re-figure this whole line of attack – everyone killed that one.

  36. motionview says:

    King: Now go at each other on this.

  37. motionview says:

    King: And tear the heads off them live chickens you geeks! Dance monkey boys dance!

  38. motionview says:

    Newt – How dare you ask about this when you never asked Obama about his support for infanticide.
    Romney – And what was up with Stephanoluffuggagous asking me about contraception? Eh?

  39. bh says:

    Maybe I’m crazy but if Paul was going after me like this I’d start asking him about specifics from his newsletters.

  40. motionview says:

    John King just sprung wood. Sprang?

  41. motionview says:

    immigration question from the audience – john king has to try to modify it to talk about it a fence costing $3M/mile. What a prick.

  42. motionview says:

    How is Paul a Republican again?

  43. Blake says:

    Cool, Santorum hit Romney hard over the federal funding of Romneycare.

    If Santorum can do it, you know Obama will clobber Romney with that issue.

  44. motionview says:

    Newt: none of the illegal aliens carried about our wetlands policy

  45. sdferr says:

    Has anyone asked to see John King’s miniature pocket edition of The Audacity of Hope, y’know, just to check how dog-eared it is?

  46. motionview says:

    It’s all sticky.

  47. sdferr says:

    What, he eats peanut butter ‘n’ jelly sandwiches while he studies it?

  48. motionview says:

    And bananas.

  49. motionview says:

    Someone really should have worked Fast and Furious into the fence discussion.

  50. Pablo says:

    “American.” Duh.

  51. bh says:

    The draft. The fucking draft.

  52. bh says:

    We’re encouraging Iran to get a nuke. But, no one knows that they are even working towards one. Also, the Soviets are just like the Iranians in MAD theory.

    Yes, that’s a guy on the stage at a GOP debate.

  53. bh says:

    There’s a guy on the the stage during the GOP debate who consistently says “but we deserve it” on all questions of national security. I submit that this means we’re not a serious people.

  54. Pablo says:

    Iranians can’t possibly attack anybody. They can put a satellite in fucking space, but missiles aren’t within their capability.

    Ron Paul = Simpleton. His following = dangerous.

  55. Pablo says:

    I submit that this means we’re not a serious people.

    I don’t think that reflects on all of us, and every electorate ever tends to validate that. Obama, OTOH….

  56. bh says:

    It reflects on us to the degree that I don’t see anyone throwing tomatoes at him.

  57. Pablo says:

    From my read of the crowd, I suspect that’s because Romney didn’t buy them tomatoes.

  58. bh says:

    Heh. Very good.

  59. newrouter says:

    outside of double billing and earmarks what has nor luap ever accomplished in congress?

  60. Blake says:

    The bullshit “Iran is scared because they’re surrounded” line by Ron Paul is the same type of crap that was peddled to excuse the expansionist aims of the Soviet Union.

  61. Blake says:

    Hey, Newt took Sarah’s advice when he pointed out the national security implications of producing our own energy.

  62. Jeff G. says:

    I DVRed the debate and here’s my takeaway: Ron Paul is working with Mitt Romney. And I’m curious how the Paul supporters justify what is becoming more and more clear here. Not only is Paul going after Santrorum (and before that, Gingrich) with his advertising, but he goes after them at debates, as well — and gives Romney, who is far and away the most statist politician on the stage, a complete pass.

    It’s an orchestrated alliance, and it’s an obvious one. So. Any Paul people out there want to comment?

  63. Jeff G. says:

    Also, Romney’s sole skill is being a complete and total slime.

    I will never vote for him. Sorry. Ain’t gonna happen

  64. sdferr says:

    Most every plausible — if tacit — account of Paul’s alliance with Romney I’ve heard offered boils down to a mercenary motive on Paul’s part. This is Ron Paul, so far as Ron Paul desires to be.

  65. Abe Froman says:

    The hard thing about the debates – and I’ve only watched them after the fact – is that I have have a hard time seeing myself voting for anyone but Gingrich. Romney is a non-starter.

  66. Blake says:

    Jeff, did you catch Ari Fleischer ceding the definition of women’s health to the Democrats?

  67. sdferr says:

    Unless, that is, Paul’s attempt at or gesture toward transcendence of any sort is simply to emulate the nihilism of Iago. How fucked up would it be to find that out in the end, eh, Paul lovers?

  68. Pablo says:

    This is Ron Paul, so far as Ron Paul desires to be.

    Which is a desire to be relevant. Adulation overdose, if I had to diagnose it.

  69. geoffb says:

    In the PPP Michigan poll the Paul supporters had favorable feelings toward the GM bailout, Romney’s were a 50-50 split while Gingrich’s and Santorum’s were against it.

    I don’t think Ron Paul’s supporters are even who he thinks they are. His candidacy is being propped up and used by people who will never vote for him in a general election any more that McCain’s press friends from the primary were his friends in the 2008 general.

  70. Pablo says:

    I don’t think the Branch Paulinians know who they are.

  71. BT says:

    Jeezus. The entire group of talking heads on CNN are basically saying that democrat women are too stupid to understand that saying the federal government should not force private industry and or religious organizations to provide contraception free of charge is not the same as saying that women will no longer have access to contraceptives.

  72. Abe Froman says:

    Has there ever been a poll conducted that would indicate the percentage of Paul supporters are habitual dope smokers? Because, really, my informal survey in real life suggests that it’s 100%

  73. Abe Froman says:

    God, I have to start reading comments before I hit “send.”

  74. Pablo says:

    Why is Erick Erickson there if not to bitchslap Donna Brazile when she says dumb shit like “restricting access to birth control?”

    CNN makes you stupid.

  75. newrouter says:

    bold colors no pale pastels

    More. So there are two primary schools of thought on this I think. And I’ll say at the outset that until very recently I’ve been very firmly in the first camp. Which is the view that with the pathetic state of the economy, and the utter failure of virtually every single policy the Obama administration has executed, it would be utter insanity to run a candidate in November who would enable the President and his surrogates to distract voters from these core issues. The stimulus failure. ObamaCare. Solyndra. Fast and Furious. Unemployment. The deficits. Gas prices. The list goes on, and with the exception of the recent flare-up over the contraception mandate, it is almost completely devoid of any social issue of great concern to any meaningful slice of the broader electorate.

    Is the public craving a debate over the influence of Satan in America, or whether it’s possible to serve as both a Soldier of God and President? I really doubt it.

    But maybe this is a debate we need to have, which I think encapsulates at a high level at least the view of many religious conservatives. As John pointed out when we spoke about this the other day, the root of most of the issues which divide America between left and right is if not religion directly, then political philosophy which is ultimately derived from a belief in moral or religious principles (or a lack thereof). And let’s not forget that while many of us on the Right would prefer to leave religion out of the debate entirely, the Left, led by President Obama, have been eagerly co-opting the language of religion in order to craft at least a facade of morality to support their agenda. Pretty successfully, I might add.

    Rather than dancing around the periphery of these issues, why not go right at the heart of the matter? Why not present voters with as clear of a contrast as possible on matters of faith, as well as fiscal conservatism? Is there anyone better suited than Rick Santorum to challenge the President on the belief system underlying his core values?

    link

  76. Jeff G. says:

    After the debate, I flipped over to Fox only to see Bill O’Reilly shouting down some rep from American Petrochemical for high gas prices which “are hurting the folks.” No talk about profit percentage, tax burden, etc. No commiserating with the rep for those times when gas prices are very low (that is, were one to extrapolate out from O’Reilly’s dangerous and faulty faux populist thinking). Just your predictable fake lunch-pail defender chest thumping from a fake man of the people.

    Why does this buffoon have an audience? Seriously? Why?

    And who is that audience?

    We are so screwed.

  77. Jeff G. says:

    Jeff, did you catch Ari Fleischer ceding the definition of women’s health to the Democrats?

    No, I didn’t. But what do you expect, really: we have to face facts that there are a large number of liberal Republicans who are motivated solely by tax cuts, and would just as soon pander to identity groups along with left over just about every other issue.

  78. sdferr says:

    “Why does this buffoon have an audience?”

    Because when we bisect the Bell curve, we find a whole left-side there to be served.

  79. Blake says:

    We had a couple of pretty strong personalities on stage followed by the limp wrist talking heads who get the job of “framing” the issues and watering down the message.

    Yecchh.

  80. geoffb says:

    I can’t get this to format well but it shows that Santorum pulls higher support from Republicans and Independents that any other and that Paul does best with Democrats, ties Romney with Independents and is way back with Republicans.

    Candidate Base poll Democrat Republican Independent
    Gingrich 10% 21% 10% 7%
    Paul 15% 31% 9% 25%
    Romney 33% 30% 36% 24%
    Santorum 37% 19% 39% 35%
    Not sure 6% – 6% 8%

  81. geoffb says:

    Well the poll supports sdferr above.

  82. geoffb says:

    Nancy Pelosi Issues Statement On Soaring Gas Prices

    “Independent reports confirm that speculators are driving up the cost of oil, hurting consumers and potentially damaging the economic recovery. Wall Street profiteering, not oil shortages, is the cause of the price spike.
    […]
    “We need to take strong action to protect consumers from this speculation.
    […]
    “We support efforts by the Obama Administration to expand domestic energy resources, including natural gas and renewable sources like wind and solar that create jobs in America and will end our dangerous dependence on foreign energy supplies.

    She then stood up, removed her velvet covered knee-pads, and quietly left the room.

  83. sdferr says:

    “Nancy Pelosi . . . blah blah blah . . . etc unto death. ”

    It’s always good to hear from the more moronic left, if only to know that their corpse isn’t busy rotting away over in some forgotten corner somewhere.

  84. geoffb says:

    Paul works the left side of the Bell curve but Nancy works that long tail there, but that is her district.

  85. EBL says:

    No big victories tonight. No big blunders. A few small ones. All these debates for now are trying to gauge who would do best against Barack Obama. Frankly Rick, Newt, and Mitt could probably hold their own against Barack. Hell, even old Ron (while a non starter for me on foreign policy) might give theoretically him a run (if only stealing a few votes from his base).

    Yeah this article is claiming (Rand) Paul is going to be Romney’s veep. A Palin like move isn’t it?http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/22/rand-paul-says-it-would-be-an-honor-to-be-considered-as-veep-this-explains-a-lot/ But I could see Paul trying to work a platform policy deal with Romney in exchange for not running as a third party candidate and throwing support to him. Okay, so Paul is like Tessio. Is Santorum a Sonny or Michael?

  86. bh says:

    Paul is like ’08 Huckabee. Romney is like ’08 McCain.

    We’re like us ’08. Fucked.

  87. JD says:

    A fucking men

  88. geoffb says:

    Newt is Sonny. We can hope that Rick is Mikey but that role is still in the air.

  89. newrouter says:

    But let’s get back to the debate. Even as Romney took his mittens off and suckerpunched Santorum for earmarks Mitt himself supported — Romney remains the smarmy apple polisher who likes to narc on his misbehaving classmates — one could almost see strings attached to the reinvented Republican’s back. Romney is the semi-reformed RINO dummy of high-priced ventriloquists — a dummy whose words and robotic jerks come from the pushing and pulling of scummy strategists and pollsters who crawl along a corrupt corridor from Boston to D.C. His “Fortune 500” campaign makes me sick. Is the GOP really going to nominate this fraud?

    The cheapness and inauthenticity of his campaign is too depressing for words. One small example of this dismal charade came early in the debate when Romney made an utterly random reference to “George Costanza.” Apparently, one of Romney’s oh-so-clever strategists told him to dispel his image as a nerd trapped in the 1950s by spicing up his answers with “hip” references. So what does Romney do? He cites, for no apparent reason, a character from a sitcom that went off NBC’s schedule over a decade ago.

    http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/23/the-mittens-come-off-in-mesa

  90. Car in says:

    YEA. I’m back. I couldn’t log in. Jeff fixt it for me.

  91. Car in says:

    Does anyone know – I heard last night on NPR that one of the reasons of the increase in cost of oil is that the US has “lost”/closed 5% (I think, I’m sick and things are fuzzy) of it’s refinery capability in the last year. NPR brushed it off saying that the refineries were “old and inefficient”, but of course I’m wondering if these were closed due to politics/ epa decisions, etc.

    Does anyone know, have a link?

  92. McGehee says:

    I really wish Neumayr would stop trying to be so subtle. Makes it hard to tell what he really thinks.

  93. newrouter says:

    “one of the reasons of the increase in cost of oil is that the US has ” devalued it’s currency

  94. JHoward says:

    We’re encouraging Iran to get a nuke.

    Iran has been 6 mos away from a nuke for four years. There’s got to me more to this…

  95. JHoward says:

    or ‘be’.

  96. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Couple of good links from newrouter above.

    Here’s some more from the first:

    John and I learned a hard lesson a few years ago in a different yet oddly and eerily similar situation and that lesson is this: Whoever controls the stage and frames the issues and controls the language wins, even if there is no DOUBT that the person or group who “wins” is wrong and so far off base that it is mind-boggling that anyone could follow them down the road they are traveling.

    In this case, Obama controls or nearly controls all three of those things. He controls the stage because he has the most powerful bully-pulpit in the world. He frames the issues because of his bully-pulpit and because he has a massive percentage of the broadcast and print media in his corner along with a decent percentage of the internet media/blogosphere. He controls the language because he controls the stage and because he frames the issues.

    It doesn’t matter how important the moral/spiritual issues are at the present time and/or how badly these things need to be discussed. It doesn’t matter, not because ethics and morality and spirituality and such are not important, but because the discussions will NOT take place in an honest and open manner. The discussion will be controlled and distorted by the president and his minions, by the liberal/elite press and those who stand in the spotlight of pop culture and speak to the masses, by the pseudo-intellectual elites in their fortresses of dishonesty and/or disenchantment.

    (Just to see if we can get Jeff to rise up out of his sickbed like old Dan Tobin in The Quiet Man.)

    and the new blockquote format doesn’t seem to like paragraph breaks

  97. EBL says:

    newrouter: He could not come up with a reference to Glee or Walking Dead?

  98. […] have to admit that I’m leaning towards making an exception and Jeff Goldstein is to blame. He wrote, in a Debate Open Thread over at his joint, the following: I DVRed the debate and here’s my […]

  99. I Callahan says:

    It works!!

  100. newrouter says:

    Personally, I’d like to see Santorum take on Obama. He’s really the only candidate who even sees this dynamic happening and the only one who can push back on these issues with the same gravitas that Obama can sometimes muster. It’s the reason he’s leading in the polls. But he’s got to be smarter about it. He’s already made too many mistakes on this front. I don’t think he can afford many more before his support drops. There’s a fine line to tread between the emotive, religious power of “forces of evil” and the laughable farce of a dogmatic bozo nightmare.

    http://www.verumserum.com/?p=38217#comment-3383582

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