Notes on the Republican Debate, Jackson Pollock-style

...and by that I mean rendered in haphazard splatters by a bald, and possibly drunk, proprietor. Let's get to it!

*The onstage arrangement of the candidates is pretty dang telling, don't you think? Could CNN be any more transparent about its rooting interests? Front and center: Rudy McRomney. Shunted off to the very edges -- as literal representations of the "fringe" candidates -- are Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul. You suck, CNN.

*Geez, I'm sure glad nobody thought to pose the healthcare questions to the only medical doctor on stage. That would be crazy!

*Duncan Hunter: please, just shut up. He delivers his answers like a junior varsity coach who takes himself and his job a little too seriously. And he had the audacity to suggest that he's more committed to cutting government than any other Republican candidate. Which left Ron Paul supporters feeling like this:

*Mike Huckabee is a fervent believer in creationism. This is weird, because it illustrates how oddball beliefs can become mainstream as long as they're steeped in religious convictions. Look at it this way: if a presidential candidate believed life on earth originated in some space alien's petri dish, and that magic mushrooms were put here deliberately to accelerate our evolution, he'd be labeled a crackpot and summarily dismissed. But are those ideas any more loopy than literal belief in the creation story? Just saying, one idea is acceptable to express in public, the other is not. Ours is a fucked up society.

*Although lacking in fireworks or even much intrigue, this debate was for me a watershed moment, because Rudy Giuliani demonstrated quite plainly why he is unfit to be president. He feels the need to answer EVERY QUESTION even when not given the floor; it's like he loves the sound of his own nasal lisp. I wish that smug, officious, narcissistic, attention-whoring megalomaniac would shut the fuck up already. It's crazy that the totalitarian Rudy has been polling as the frontrunner. The guy seeks to ratchet up the Iraq war, refuses to disavow the insane "nuclear option" against Iran, and intends to foist a national ID card on the people of this country. Utterly insane.

I feel the exact same way whenever you open your piehole, Rudy.

*I'm no supporter of Tom Tancredo's, but he did have the best line of the night: asked what role George W. Bush might play in a Tancredo administration, the latter relayed how his criticism of Dubya's immigration policy led an angry Karl Rove to warn him to "Never darken the door of the White House again." Tancredo said: "I would have to tell George Bush the exact same thing Karl Rove told me." Well played, sir.

*If you slapped a turtleneck and bad mustache on Mitt Romney, he'd look like a bad villain from a 70's cop drama, no? I don't trust that guy AT ALL.

*Winners: war, nuclear options, statism, Wolf Blitzer, 9/11, lightning, pandering, the media, banality.

*Losers: peace, freedom, liberty, Iran, immigration, honesty, puppies, sunshine, the American public.