printThe debate was good; well-put together with interesting information culled from the Google meta-media. The Republican “thrust and Perry” in Tampa, Florida, earlier this month, set a good standard. You know me: I want words—textual red meat to sink my teeth into. I was worried at first that, true to character, Fox News would stick with visuals and stiff the written or pixelated word. (Here’s a slide show of the debaters! Oy!) But—hooray!— Fox came through with a rush transcript. Well-done!
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MINN had the opportunity to salvage the question Jon Huntsman flubbed in the previous, Tea-Party debate: “Out of every dollar I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?” “It’s all yours,” she replied, but we still have to send something back for the government. A contradiction, of course.
FORMER Utah Governor Jon Huntsman solidified his standing as a committed statist, having “told the New Hampshire Union Leader [that] as president [he] would subsidize the natural gas industry.” Huntsman just can’t keep his sticky fingers out of the meddling business. The industry doesn’t need help; it needs to be left alone. (The industry is currently making its case to the public via tremendous ads that explain the safeguards with respect to fracking.)
However, as in the previous debate, Huntsman managed to distill, better than the rest, a foreign-policy vision: “… as the only one on stage with any hands-on foreign policy experience, having served — having lived overseas four different times, we’re at a critical juncture in our country. We don’t have a foreign policy, and we don’t project the goodness of this country in terms of liberty, democracy, open markets, and human rights, with a weak core. And right now in this country, our core, our economy, is broken. And we don’t shine that light today. We’re 25 percent of the world’s GDP. The world is a better place when the United States is strong [I understood him to mean strong economically]. So guiding anything that we talk about from a foreign policy standpoint needs to be fixing our core. But, second of all, I believe that, you know, after 10 years of fighting the war on terror, people are ready to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, Rick.”
Texas Governor Rick Perry sounds more and more like a slightly less stupid W, which is still plenty stupid and cunning to boot.
Here Perry is losing control over the words, as W used to:
PERRY:
I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment?
Was it — was before he was before the social programs, from the standpoint of he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against Roe v. Wade? He was for Race to the Top, he’s for Obamacare, and now he’s against it. I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and — and — and see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight.
Now that’s a Bushism. Shudder.
Garry Johnson had a good joke: “My next-door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.”
Even better was Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, invoking Ronald Reagan’s lines:
“When your brother-in-law is unemployed, it’s a recession. When you’re unemployed, it’s a depression. When Jimmy Carter’s unemployed, it’s a recovery. Nothing — nothing will turn America around more than Election Night, when Barack Obama loses decisively.”
NOW, SOMEONE PRAY TELL, why do all these candidates say “Sosal Security”? In English it’s pronounced Soshial Security.”
UPDATE (Sept. 23): MITT’S MANNERS. Hours after this site singled out Perry’s pathetic Bushisms, mainstream media is doing the same. Almost a full day after the debate, Perry’s word-salad is being reluctantly reported by Fox News.
However, what other sources see as a dismal lack of command of issues of foreign affairs, Fox News described as Perry’s “show of some chops, flashing knowledge about the Haqqani Network and Indian diplomacy.”
I’m with Alan Schroeder of the HuffPo:
Yet on matters of substance, Perry remains startlingly unprepared. Asked a theoretical question about Pakistan losing control of its nuclear weapons, the governor gave an incoherent response that amounted to a pile of steaming dung. It is remarkable that a man so obviously lacking in foreign policy credentials does not make a greater effort to bone up; in this regard he is more Sarah Palin than Ronald Reagan.
Over to Schroeder again:
Romney the debater is crisp, businesslike, in command of his material, and as bloodlessly efficient as a German luxury sedan. Perry the debater is sloppy, sentimental, uncertain of his facts, and brimming with the sort of down-home folksiness that makes Republican audiences go weak in the knees.
“Sosal Security” is shorthand for “So, Sal, where’s the SECURITY in this government program?” I think Sal is speaking to “PONZI”.
ps: Gary Johnson, Newt, and Cain should form a TRIUMVERIT (SP?). It may not work, but would we have fun laughing at all the jokes, retorts, and sarcasm!
A hopeless lot. I’m beginning to think a Romney nomination might be for the best. This would split the Repub Pty along TP/RINO lines, and lead to the TP finally going 3rd Pty. Result: Zero squeaks thru in the EC with 2012. Perry then takes Texas and 20-25 other High Plains, Midwest, and southern states out of the USA. Civil War II: it’s the only way we’re ever going to get rid of the Beltway Socialisti.
If I surrounded myself with Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, I’d come off looking like a complete schnook. If I surrounded myself with Maxine Waters and Sarah Palin, I might come off looking intelligent. Well, don’t ask me how he did it but Mitt (rhymes with **it) comes off as Benjamin Franklin compared to Rick Perry. And I generally don’t like the insipid Romney. I almost root for him when I see him next to Rick (missing the p in front of his name) Perry.
[Great stuff, M.]
That Perry is the “front runner” says much about the modern day (neofascist) Republican electorate. Goofy libertarian Johnson, Jiving “businessman” Cain, Plaintive Michelle, Egotistical Newt, Calming Huntsman, Lecturing “Jeremiah” Ron show up better. Even that arrogant schmuck Santorum, who nailed Perry on “free tuition” for trespassers, comes off better than Perry. And that is on style.
As for substance, is Perry there to make me nostalgic for Dubya??? The guy is as clueless as Palin, as arrogantly goofy as Dubya, more corrupt than Clinton, and he even shows some potential to being worse than Obama (which would be a tremendous feat!).
Proof that CIVILIZATION IS DOOMED: when we have to root for Mitt Romney!
Dennis
It’s triumvirate.
Hold on a sec…I agree with most everything that has been written here and in the comments (My Ron Paul I, especially).
However, to be fair, Perry’s answer, with regards to the hypothetical nuclear weapons being lost in Pakistan, was not inchoate blubber (though that Romney flip-flopper broadside by Perry certainly was Admiral Stockdale-esque). As I recall, the man said the U.S. needs to develop its relationship with India; a country that has been given the cold shoulder over the past 11 years in dealing with Pakistan, ISI, and real menace behind the terror networks. Perry didn’t respond with the neo-con approach of a unilateral attack on Pakistan that I suspect his colleagues would have jumped to. But Perry’s understanding of the geo-politics of the region is in fact correct; many in the intelligence industry waited 10 years before acknowledging that Pakistan may have been sabotaging our efforts in the region and that India would have been a better partner.
I believe Perry is a confirmed Blue Dog Democrat, but I am not yet worried about his debating skill.
Obama looked like a total idiot early on in the primaries. He got better, and so will Perry.
If it weren’t such a serious matter, it would be almost funny…listening to
everyone complaining that this candidate did this…or that candidate did that ( as if the thigs that they complain about is something new….they aren’t). Then, when anyone points out that there is one candidate out of the whole batch ( both sides)….who has never done any of these things, who has always been honest, forthright and a defender of the Constitution….someone who has stood up for smaller, less intrusive government, sound currency and personal freedoms…….everyone goes wild … calling the man everything except…a viable candidate. Why is that?
It is obvious to me ( as it should be to everyone else) that what we have been doing….ISN”T WORKING…..and maybe…just maybe, it’s time to take a new approach to the way this nation is beng run. Maybe, just maybe it’s time to stop electing “business as usual” “mainstream”candidates….who continue to run our nation into the ground while ignoring the will of the people.
If we were to elect Dr. Ron Paul, could he really be any worse than what we’ve had over the last 40+ years (both sides)?
If we were to elect him and he doesn’t make changes that positively affect our nation….can we not vote him out in another 4 years?
Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over…and expecting to get a different result.
Isn’t it time that we stopped the insanity?
While I am not asking anyone to vote for any particular candidate, I will ask that you spend more time actually looking into all of the candidates’ backgrounds ( voting records, campaign finances…who they’ve made deals with etc.). learn everything you can about the candidates (not the MSM talking heads versions…do the research yourselves), so that on election
day….you can make an informed decision about who you want to represent you in government….
Remember, what they do is a direct reflection on us…..if they do foolish things….it makes us look like we elected foolish people….which means we look like fools for electing them in the first place.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am tired of the insanity and will be
casting my vote for Ron Paul.
You can say that I am wasting my vote….well , I guess that’s OK….it is after all…MY….vote……it doesn’t belong
to any party or candidate….it belongs to me …to cast as my conscience
dictates.
I hope eveyone makes informed decisions concerning our future as a
nation.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived
and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
John F. Kennedy
***
[This ramble is misplaced on a libertarian site where support for Ron Paul goes back years. Search under “Ron Paul” in the our Articles Archives and Blog Archive.]
Hello CONTEMPLATIONIST,
My last LATIN class was 50 years ago and, yes, I was too lazy to check the spelling.
Good Catch!