Republican Debate Was A Waste Of Time
I’ve been busy all day and all night today so while I watched the Republican debate I didn’t have time to write much of a reaction to it. But this from Michael Graham about sums up my thoughts:
Did this debate accomplish anything, other than to remind us that Tim Russert is the most overrated journalist in television?
I’m trying to imagine what Florida voter watched that and went—“OK, now I’m ready to vote!”
The conventional wisdom is that Romney owns the economy as an issue. But Rudy has a real plan, and a significantly different approach, that he and Romney could have debated. Someone could have pointed out that, if McCain had gotten his way, we probably would have had a real recession in the first part of this decade. How about Gov. Huckabee’s $500 million net tax increase?
There’s plenty to discuss, and instead the “highlight” film that will make the nightly news will likely be either Huckabee’s Chuck Norris joke; or the vicious NYTimes “Rudy Sucks” question, followed by a tiny snippet of Rudy’s answer.
Sad, but true. This from Jonah Goldberg was also interesting:
Brian Williams actually seems to think condemnation from the New York Times is a handicap for Rudy Giuliani and an endorsement from the Times for McCain is good for McCain. This is a Republican primary. He should have said, “Senator McCain, the New York Times says you are the best and most qualified of the Republican field, how can you hope to win the Republican nomination with friends like that?”
You wouldn’t think being the New York Times’ candidate would help someone running in a Republican primary.
What was particularly funny was Brian Williams’ insistence that Rudy defend himself against a scathing editorial from the Times:
Listen to Williams’ tone of voice. “How can you defend yourself?” It’s as though Williams thinks that Republicans care about the Times running a hit piece on Giuliani. As though such a development were somehow unexpected.
Williams may as well have asked Rudy how he could possibly defend himself from criticism launched by, say, Hillary Clinton.
