Republican Redux

So I know it is a bit late for a post on the GOP debate in South Carolina. By now, probably everybody has seen this little testy exchange between Rudy Giuliani and Libertarian Ron Paul. (As an aside, the audience was asked to not applaud until after the debate, but somehow found time to applaud several times including after Rudy's response.)

Guess what the news networks were talking about the next day. Most expressed the expected outrage against Paul's analysis that 9/11/01 was blowback from US operations in the mideast. Of course, leave it to FoxNews's John Gibson to go off the deep end on a guy who has gone off the deep end.


Um, Mr. Gibson. Ron Paul was not making the same argument as the "9/11 Truth" types. They say that September 11th was a conspiracy by the government in order to lead a war for profit. Ron Paul does not. He believes this is the result of US interventionist foreign policies.

Look, my problem is not that Ron Paul is not being taken seriously. He certainly has a point, even if that point is wrapped up in a world view which depends on the incomprehensible "irrationality of US politics." But no, I do not expect US news to be sophisticated enough to discuss the ideological and empirical underpinnings of his argument.

But is it too much to expect the news to get the facts right? I mean, you are the news. He is not in line with the 9/11 Truth types. In fact, he is directly contradicting them. Can we please, please, please try to get our facts right?! YOU ARE THE NEWS, DAMNIT!

Speaking of "damnit," the absolute best moment of the debate was this one. The following question dominated the debate, taking up by far more time than any other question asked:

MR. HUME: Welcome back to the Koger Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of South Carolina.

The questions in this round will be premised on a fictional, but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it. Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.

First question to you, Senator McCain. How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?

Yes, the most discussed question of the night dealt with a hypothetical terrorist attack on the nation. This is what we have come to. Every other candidate had responded quite seriously to this absurd hypothetical. Fortunately, Tom Tancredo knew exactly what to do:

REP. TANCREDO: Well, let me just say that it's almost unbelievable to listen to this in a way. We're talking about -- we're talking about it in such a theoretical fashion. You say that -- that nuclear devices have gone off in the United States, more are planned, and we're wondering about whether waterboarding would be a -- a bad thing to do? I'm looking for "Jack Bauer" at that time, let me tell you. (Laughter, applause.)

Tom Tancredo: you the man. Call in Jack. This man is ready to lead in a way that Bush and Logan never were! Way to call the absurdity of the moderators. Unfortunately, he then kept on talking:

And -- and there is -- there is nothing -- if you are talking about -- I mean, we are the last best hope of Western civilization. And so all of the theories that go behind our activities subsequent to these nuclear attacks going off in the United States, they go out the window because when -- when we go under, Western civilization goes under. So you better take that into account, and you better do every single thing you can as president of the United States to make sure, number one, it doesn't happen -- that's right -- but number two, you better respond in a way that makes them fearful of you because otherwise you guarantee something like this will happen.

Stupidity leads to arrogance. Arrogance leads to foolishness. Foolishness leads to suffering.

OK so Tom Tancredo is a bit of an arrogant fool. But at the end of the day, he was the only one to call Hume on the absurdity of his question, and he invoked Jack Bauer in doing so. Therefore, until further notice, Tom Tancredo has the official endorsement of this blog.