I didn’t watch.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Shut up, hissy kitty!
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!
Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.
“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”
When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.
Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.
Celebrate the fucking wins.
Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.
The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.
There is no right way to do the wrong thing.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.
The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.
Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.
Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.
It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.
I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.
No one could have predicted…
Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.
Fight them, without becoming them!
cleek
i will summarize:
GOP1: Strength!
GOP2: Will!
GOP3: Never Surrender!
GOP4: Gates Of Hell!
GOP5: Patriotism!
GOP6: Reagan Was Teh Awesome!
GOP7: Progress!
GOP8: No Fags!
GOP9: No Brownies!
GOP10: No Taxes!
[shuffle]
[redeal]
Paul Wartenberg
Neither did I.
These debates are overhyped wastes of oxygen. The best you can do is watch someone self-destruct, and that’s never pretty. Until the Daily Show gets ahold of it and pares it down to what you really need to see. It’s like “Manos: Hands of Fate,” there is no way you can survive watching the original version, but if you watch the MST3K version you can laugh your ass off.
Andrew
I like watching Gilmore pretend to be important.
Krista
Wouldn’t that be great if MST3K covered the debates? Now THAT would be worth watching.
p.lukasiak
the debate was on FoxNews….and Fox refuses to let it be broadcast on CSpan (either live, or in a rebroadcast.)
In other words, the 95% of your readership that has a brain didn’t watch it.
The Other Steve
Now that’d make for a nice youtube.
Anyway, did you guys catch the Josh Marshall clip today about MSNBC quoting a spoof site about Falwell?
lard lad
Some MSNBC intern is in for the butt whuppin’ of his life…
Ned R.
The Manos mention makes me so happy.
“ThE mAsTeR wOuLdN’t LiKe It If YoU sUpPoRtEd UnIvErSaL hEaLtH cArE!”
Tsulagi
I caught about 15 minutes of the “debate” in pieces.
Saw Multiple Choice Matinee Mitt the Lifelong Varmint Hunter gushing about how much he hearts Gitmo. That must have caused the Bill Bennett Republican manly men to drop their bags of Cheetos and collectively swoon. Surprised he didn’t wave his shiny, new NRA Life Member card at the end to really put them away.
Not to be outdone, Tancredo let the audience know Jack Bauer was a guy he wouldn’t mind calling. Bet those dropped Cheetos bags got picked up and high-fived on that one.
jake
I say again: It is way too damn early for this crap. At the current rate of accelerated election antics people will declare for the 2016 race this January.
Oh man, the thought of Mike & the bots snarking on pols made me crack up.
Actually, 99.9% of all tee vee would benefit from a little MSTification. Curse you Comedy Central!
kchiker
Question: What does it say about the Republican party that you have 10 white men running for its nomination?
Answer (Gilmore): But I’m a good guy!!!!!
AkaDad
I, for one, appreciate how the Republican candidates truly represent American diversity…
kchiker
American candidates in general…certainly under-represent we single folk. Are there any single people amonst the 28 running?
zzyzx
I watched for a few minutes but it’s 80 degrees today so we went for a walk and played frisbee and went to Cupcake Royale and now the M’s are on. Priorities!
stickler
kchiker:
Um, it sort of depends on how you define it. Several of the Republican candidates have been … how would you say … serially single. At times. Repeatedly.
Depressed Liberal
Republican debate footage:
http://www.current.tv/pods/supernews/PD06197
And for fairness… the Democratic debate:
http://www.current.tv/pods/supernews/PD06121
Mr Furious
Two interesting debate clips from Crooks and Liars.
Ron Paul vs. Giuliani on the Root Causes of Terrorism
and
Brit Hume’s Torture Porn Hypothetical
matt
So what do people really think about the ticking time bomb scenario as it relates to the torture debate? I know people dislike that particular framing in the way same they hate when people ask, “if gay people are allowed to get married, why not cousins?” Because it’s a question intended to demonize gay people and muddy the debate. But taken out of the partisan political context in which they’re asked, the questions in and of themselves seem worth discussing, even if it’s just to do a bit of intellectual wanking.
I bring this up because I think of myself as someone who’s against torture, but also as someone who (if president) wouldn’t hesitate to order the waterboarding of someone who I knew had information of a terrorist attack.
Maybe I’m projecting my own conflicted thoughts here, but I sense that a lot of people aren’t really honest about this. It either feels good to think you’ll do whatever it takes to protect your country, or it feels good to take the moral high ground.
I really can’t be the only person in the country who isn’t rock solid in one camp or the other, right?
Steve
But everyone who’s actually been involved in interrogation will tell you that the ticking time bomb scenario never occurs in reality and that talking about it is a waste of time. It’s like asking a pro-lifer if they’d let Hitler’s mother get an abortion. Poking a hole in someone’s principles, when the “hole” is a silly hypothetical that never comes up in the real world, is a meaningless exercise.
Leader Desslok
Jerry Falwell is sexy!
rachel
Man, the only one of these guys who has the guts to say it like he sees it and has any common sense is Ron Paul… So he has about as much chance of winning the nomination as a paper dog chasing an asbestos cat in Hell.
Zombie Santa Claus
Cousins can’t marry because incest fucks up the children, genetically speaking. Gay marriages don’t have any such drawback, and there’s no evidence that homosexual adoptions harm children in any way.
I’m with Steve on the ticking time bomb scenario. But even if you did have that situation, and you did torture the guy, how do you know he wasn’t just making some crap up for you?
MMM
I do have new respect for Ron Paul. Several times he did not retreat when attacked with straw man arguments. I might not agree with everything he says but at least he believes what he says and appears that today’s polls are not going to cause him to support the war.
jake
No matter how you slice it, it’s still baloney.
I still can’t get my head around the concept of a “torture debate.” If someone said “Hey! Let’s have a debate about the merits of pedophilia!” or “You know, this country would be a much better place if we killed everyone over 65, let’s talk about it.” it would be tar, feathers, rail in five seconds flat and good riddance to bad rubbish.
I would like my (relatively) sane America back, please.
Tulkinghorn
The torture argument is ridiculous. The absolute prohibition on torture was an innovation by Washington, and is a major credit to American civilization. No one has ever pointed to a historical event here the failure to use torture cost this country anything. Even a flat militarist should be concerned about overturning one of the a priori principles at the core of our army’s history of honor, established by Washington himself.
How anyone can consider themselves and American patriot and a conservative (much less a christian) and not appreciate this just boggles the mind.
This is why those of us on the left identify the dominant strain of thought within the Republican Party as being one authoritarian demagoguery. These people are not running for president — they are running for monarch.
Rusty Shackleford
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.
Andrew
Ticking time bomb? Yeah, like the terrorist is going to give it up if he knows he just has to hold out for 45 minutes.
Cyrus
So if no one was watching, I guess no one knows how many times Falwell was mentioned, and by whom? Pity.
Rusty Shackleford
With the Bulls taking control of their game and the White Sox being rained out I was able to watch almost the entire debate.
1. I was taken aback to see the candidate’s religion was listed in their small bio that appeared on screen during the introductions. When “Mormon” flashed for Romney I realized the reason.
2. Why was the audience allowed to participate? They were allowed to applaud, cheer, gasp, whatever – just unacceptable for a debate.
3. When the candidates were questioned on the lack of diversity it was pointed out that they were all ROWM. A cameraman should have panned the audience so show they were 99% white too. Juan Williams may have been the only black person there for all we knew. If I hear one more Republican refer to their party as “the big tent” I’m going to puke.
4. Did you see Rudy play “The Macho” card? Paul should have responded that Giuliani should have gone for substance instead of a soundbite because he just displayed his lack of depth concerning the cause of terrorism. Anybody who thinks it’s because “they hate our freedom” is an absolute dipshit. The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden all collected paychecks from the CIA at some point in their careers.
5. McCain is by far the most “canned” Republican up there. Senator Self-Promoter fumbles to tell the same weak-ass jokes every time he makes an appearance. Straight-Talk my ass.
6. I don’t trust Romney as far as I can through him. And with my bad knee…
7. The “24 / If you were Jack Bauer…?” round was ridiculous. I think McCain and someone else said as much that plannning for a hypothetical million-to-one scenario isn’t very realistic.
Which brings me to…
8. McCain and other GOP candidates have to dumb themselves down far more for Republican acceptance than any Democratic candidate ever would. Like McCain’s response on stem cells in the first debate, these guys know the answer but instead blow smoke up GOP fucktard asses. That’s bad for America.
9. John Edwards is more of a man than all the Republican candidates put together with a Adam’s apple transplant from Ann Coulter to top it off. Romney easily spends as much time scrubbing his ass as Edwards does combing his hair. Romney = Ass Scrubber
10. How about dem Bulls? Daaaaa Bulls, da Bulls, da Bulls – Daaaaa Bulls, da Bulls, da Bulls…
Rusty Shackleford
Brit Hume gave one big condolence for everyone and then prohibited the candidates from commenting to conserve time.
Wilfred
Isn’t that why we post here? Anyway, the ticking bomb/torture scenario is getting stale. We need some different, Falwellian dilemmas, some different moral holes. Like: If you were the Attorney General and some 2 dollar crack whore knew where the nuclear bomb was hidden and she said she’d tell if you…well, you know. Would you. Senator?
annie's granny
First cousins can marry in more than half of the country. There are no laws against second cousins marrying.
Apparently, teh gay is much scarier than flipper babies.
Otto Man
Man, I love watching Rudy Guiliani pose as a foreign policy expert. The man put his counter-terrorism command center inside the one place that terrorists had attacked before — the World Trade Center — and lo and behold they hit it again. The only reason we have those images of Rudy on the streets of New York is because he’d gotten his HQ destroyed.
If it’s possible to find a less informed, more arrogant leader to ruin our world reputation further, it’s got to be Rudy.
Otto Man
Actually, given that Rudy’s first wife was his cousin, this would be an excellent question for him.
RSA
Mike is much funnier than Joel. /trollbait
Larry
I doubt that many terrorists could hold out for 45 minutes of electric cattle prod inserted anally.
That’s why we watch 24, to learn how to use the short time to our advantage and thereby save America.
Rusty Shackleford
Rudy Giuliani was married to his second cousin, Regina Peruggi, for 14 years before he had it annulled.
I shit you not.
annie's granny
Now that’s what I call Focus on the Family.
Rusty Shackleford
Are you speaking from experience? Balloon Juice is no place to air your sexual predilections.
Andrew
I thought we were talking about torturing terrorists, not the camps where Democrats convert you to the gay.
Crza
If I were on that stage and asked about the ticking time-bomb scenario, I’d simply reply with the fact that if I ever allowed any situation to reach “ticking time-bomb” status, I’VE ALREADY FAILED. But luckily for the American people, the “ticking time-bomb” scenario would remain a hypothetical plotline for 24 and nothing more, because I would invest the necessary resources towards establishing an intelligence network that would allow us to cut off all major terrorist attacks at the pass.
If there’s one thing about 9/11 that we should NEVAR FORGET!, it’s that we might have damn well been able to prevent it if only our government had taken al Qaeda seriously. Maybe not, but a great many red flags were raised before the attacks, and our government chose to ignore them.
zzyzx
Hold out for 2 minutes, give a fake location, have the people waste 43 minutes searching there, ka*boom!
stickler
The question of how long “terrorists” could hold out under torture is totally irrelevant.
1. There are infinite ways of inflicting serious unpleasantness on a human body, sufficient to cause them to talk.
2. Which has nothing to do with whether they’re going to tell you what you actually need to know. They might, or they might not. They’ll damn sure tell you whatever it takes to make you stop with the cattle prod.
3. Are you really, really sure that the guy is the terrorist? Not his cousin Omar, or some patsy the local drug lord delivered?
Steve
I thought this was a clever way of letting the candidates avoid having to go on record with praise for a total whackjob. But, as it turns out, pretty much all the candidates helpfully provided laudatory statements earlier in the day!
Also, all you good liberals who are like “I admire Ron Paul for his principles” really need to read this. Seriously.
Andrew
So he’s a crazy racist. At least he’s a crazy racist who doesn’t support massive government policing to oppress minorities and often shoot them on sight.
Compare and contrast with Giuliani.
Dreggas
I know several people who could…they do it for fun…
cd6
Where did this “time bomb” garbage even come from? In case nobody has noticed, our Islamic Jihdis don’t use “time bombs” they just pull the cord on their dynamite vests.
If some terrorist DID manage to sneak a nuke into America, do you think he’d set it on a timer and then drive leisurely away, or do you think he’d fucking sit on it, yelling “Death to America” as he blew himself and some city to smithereens?
I bet the 77 virgins aren’t part of the deal if you’re holed up in some cabin while the bombs go off.
Punchy
I thought they were all debating to a huge audience…A mass of Republicans, if you will.
So yeah, they were all up there mass debating. A whole sticky lot of male mass debaters. Hand me the umbrella.
Dreggas
It’s an invention of the movies and spy thrillers. From “The Peacemaker” to any one of Tom Clancy’s novels (who I won’t bag on because I liked Rainbow Six). It was taken primetime by 24, a show I am actually glad I never watched being that it seems nothing more than a propaganda show anyway.
It’s nothing but the scenario that the war-porn addicts use to fantasize about “what they would do” in that situation since they know in reality they’d be shitting their pants.
Dreggas
Oh and just playing catch up by reading bits of the debate, looks like the only sane one was, once again, Ron Paul in saying that 9/11 and terrorist attacks are not the result of hating “our way of life or freedom” but the result of our policies in the Middle East. Of course he was then dog piled on by the other 9 since reality is a horrible, horrible thing.
Pb
Steve,
Yeah, that’s Ron Paul for you–and he was still the sanest guy in that debate, which I think says it all, really.
RSA
My understanding is that it’s a standard philosophical thought experiment that can help clarify moral positions by looking at an extreme case. But no one should think these cases are actually common in real life. For an analogy, I think it’s like people considering lifeboat scenarios (who lives and who dies when resources and time are extremely limited) while they’re on a cruise ship, and as soon as the kitchen says, “We’re out of shrimp cocktails,” they start throwing people on wheelchairs overboard. Good God.
Andrew
Clearly, the only moral thing to do is to throw the cripples overboard before we run out of shrimp cocktails.
Zombie Santa Claus
They could if they’re the kind of terrorists willing to anally smuggle the materials to make suitcase nukes into this country. We shouldn’t forget that some of these terrorists are very, very dedicated and will stop at absolutely nothing until we’re all dead.
Tlaloc
“Cousins can’t marry because incest fucks up the children, genetically speaking.”
That’s not really true unless you have generations of inbreeding.
Zombie Santa Claus
So, what would it take for you moonbats to support installing a defensive wall along the Mexican border? If it turned out that Mexican drug smugglers were helping Islamists smuggle into this country, would that be enough? How about if those Islamists were swallowing/keistering the parts necessary to make nuclear weapons, and smuggling them in via their stomachs and/or rectums? (I know, I know, you’ll say that radiation would kill them before they planted the bomb. But you could always hide the uranium in condoms filled with lead, then swallow or keister those. Or, you could smuggle the stuff across in your rectum, get to the home of a radiation-shielded accomplice in America, die of radiation poisoning, and let him remove the parts from your body. Then he could make the bomb, and kill us all with it. Remember, lots of things are possible if you don’t care whether or not you die doing them…)
CDB
Name one time the Ticking Bomb thing occured. If you were able to, did it work?
We have over two thousand years of history to look through. Why does it have to be a hypothetical? If it was a valid point, someone should be able to provide an example.
Zombie Santa Claus
Kinda like the DuPonts, eh?
Bubblegum Tate
Birch Barlow: Mayor Quimby, you’re well-known, sir, for your lenient stance on crime. But suppose for a second that your house was ransacked by thugs, your family tied up in the basement with socks in their mouths — you try to open the door but there’s too much blood on the knob…
Mayor Quimby: What is your question?
Birch Barlow: My question is about the budget, sir.
Pb
CDB,
Guy Fawkes, and, no.
Dreggas
You really have an anal fetish don’t you?
Zombie Santa Claus
To defend America, sometimes you have to think like an America-hater. Sodomy= hatred of Mom, apple pie, and the Stars and Stripes. He Whose Name Must Go Unmentioned Because of His Recent Passage Into Zombiedom taught me that one.
Dreggas
You sure he didn’t teach you how to sing soprano?
Zombie Santa Claus
Don’t go there, girlfriend!