I GUESS THEY PAY AS MUCH ATTENTION TO THE 11TH COMMANDMENT AS THEY DO TO THE FIRST 10

Adam thinks Romney throws like a girly-boy

Last night I noticed that right-wingers were very unhappy about their debate. Who wouldn't be with a field like that? I mean Newt Gingrich didn't pull the term "a pathetic bunch of pygmies"™  out of a hat. There was a lot of right-wing teeth gnashing last night. And it wasn't just the horrible candidates. The horrible audience showed the ugly face of modern day Republicanism. They booed a decorated army general, Keith Kerr, with over 40 years of service because he thinks gay men and women should be able to serve their country openly. They boo-ed McCain because he came off as a mainstream conservative instead of a raving, ranting Nazi. The best characterization of the Republican base came from a right-wing propagandist in a right-wing journal, Richelieu in the Weekly Standard

What a depressing debate... a good night for the lowest denominator, a bad night for the GOP. America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

And, in the same reliably outlet for the radical right, Fred Barnes was just as depressed. He was moaning that Giuliani and Romney made themselves look petty by fighting over immigration to kick off the whole shebang and he wonders aloud if CNN didn't plan the whole thing to make the Republicans seem like a bunch of nuts. "[I]t was a good night for [marginal candidate Ron] Paul if only because he was treated as a major political figure rather than as the Republican version of Dennis Kucinich. The other candidates, with the exception of Mike Huckabee, were losers. They came off as a bunch of squabbling cousins."

They came off like a bunch of losers because they are a bunch of losers. Barnes is angry because the questions were kooky. "By my count, of the 30-plus questions, there were 6 on immigration, 3 on guns, 2 on abortion, 2 on gays, and one on whether the candidates believe every word in the Bible." That may not be the impression highbrow GOP insiders want the general public to have about the Republican base, but that is the Republican base. The raving lunatic from Dallas, high on home made meth, demanding that the candidates' adherence to a Bronze Age literalist interpretation of the Bible would determine whether of not they were fit to be president (of the United States), is exactly what the Republican Party has degenerated into.

Barnes thinks Huckabee won, primary because he's "not very substantive." And if Barnes and "Richelieu" are supposed to be the respectable face of old line conservatism, Michelle Malkin, like Ann Coulter, is something you don't talk about at the dinner table or in front of children. Malkin is ranting and raving today because CNN dared to have questions from people who support Democrats or even one from a member of a union. And the rest of the kooks and going on an anti-CNN rampage. And CNN has already apologized for having General Kerr on-- though sees nothing wrong with having Mr. Drown Government in a Bathtub ask a question-- even though General Kerr is a registered Republican who was representing no one but himself in the debate.