May 16, 2007
2nd GOP Debate: That's More Like It
Now that The Gate has almost fully recovered from last night's Republican debate (9 p.m. start time? Thanks, FOX), it's time to assess the post-mortems of the action. All the usual suspects have weighed in by now, and there are more thumbs-up than not to the feistiness of the 10-candidate face-off.
(For recaps of the fun, see last night's liveblog of the debate.)
There's lots of buzz around the Republican slate's own Mike Gravel, the libertarian Texas Rep. Ron Paul. They're both long-shot candidates who were thrust into headline status following their debate performances. But unlike Gravel, Paul is taking negative hits for his newsmaking moment, in which he argued that America's footprint in the Middle East was inciting terrorism and got shot down in a big way by The 9/11 Mayor himself, Rudy Giuliani.
There are two things to take away from that moment. One, Giuliani's campaign ought to hire Paul. New Yorkers know better than anyone that the anger on their former mayor's face during that exchange was the real deal. And when it comes to fighting terrorism, a little scariness from politicians is actually a good thing. Giuliani's campaign is betting that his platform on terrorism will trump unhappiness with his social views, and his performance last night was reason to throw a little money Paul's way.
Now, for the second, stickier point about the Giuliani-Paul moment: It was proof that it is still close to impossible to have a serious, nuanced dialogue on a public stage about America's role in the Middle East in the context of terrorism. Lefty journal The Nation predictably came to Paul's defense, but it also did us a favor by parsing what Paul was actually saying. (YouTube has a recap.)
Paul never actually said that the United States "invited" the 9/11 attacks, to borrow from FOX News moderator Wendell Goler's questioning. He was arguing that America's military interventions in the region inspired Islamic jihadists who target this country -- a finding that isn't relegated to the tinfoil hat crowd. (See the 9/11 commission's report.)
Writes The Nation's John Nichols: "Certainly, the vast majority of Americans would object to any attempt to justify the attacks on this country, its citizen and its soldiers. But that was not what Paul was doing. He was trying to make a case, based on what we know from past experience, for bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq."
Paul is against the Iraq war for the same reason Pat Buchanan is -- they're both old-school isolationists. He may very well believe that U.S. policy in the Middle East "invites" threats from Islamic jihadists. But that is not the same thing as saying that this country, and the nearly 3,000 people who died in those attacks, had it coming. Paul never went there, but Giuliani reacted as if he did, and that, apparently, is enough. Because when it comes to most everything 9/11, the faintest whiff of that suggestion can do a politician in.
So long, Ron Paul. It was helpful to have an anti-war voice in the mix while it lasted.
Moving on. We thought last night's FOX-sponsored debate was far better than the one hosted by MSNBC/Politico, and plenty of other news orgs seem to agree. Lots of pundits rushed to declare a winner -- can there actually be a winner with that many contenders on one stage? -- and fell into the John McCain and/or Rudy Giuliani camps.
That spells bad news for Mitt Romney, who is raking in the campaign cash but spending it in a hurry to get his name recognition up, and so far is still getting kicked in the polls by non-candidates.
The Gate noted last night that there will be more than a month's break until the next major debate, but we were wrong: Next up are the Democrats on CNN. Now that FOX has offered a better format for these face-offs, will the Dems reconsider their boycott? We'll be putting that question to the campaigns. Stay tuned for responses.
(Graphic: Reuben Dalke)
Posted at 2:20 PM
Posted to:
FOX News, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, WH 2008
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