Chris Matthews STUNK as a moderator which is probably why the whole thing was so boring.
My final take on was stated last night where I said:
With what we had here tonight folks, I think Rudy did better than I expected, Romeny sounded pretty strong, Mccain fumbled a few answers and Paul sounded like a democrat. The rest were pretty much what I expected and nothing jumped out at me like Rudy's comments about 9/11.
Last but not least, I was impressed with the fact that the Republicans, other than McCain didn't play the Democratic game of bashing Bush and taking advantage of opinion polls but they tried to stick to the issues at hand.
I would have liked to see Fred Thompson at the debate and hopefully he will be at the next one.
Opinion Journal heads their piece with "An Incomplete Field"
MSNBC must have already had the story written up and didn't bother to correct it because their title in no way reflects what I watched.
MSNBC also has the complete transcript up, you go read it and see if their followup piece speaks to the reality or if it was prewritten.
Captain's Quarters heads his piece with "Debate Analysis: Romney Wins" and I agree, Romney was strong and "presidential" although I still am far off from picking my candidate yet.
Red State has a good piece out and you should read it.
Sister Toldjah has the same impression I did about the MSNBC piece.
NYT has three pieces out, here, here and here.
Wapo and LA Times also weighed in.
Although Rudy did fumble on the abortion issue, I give the most points for GUTS, he said something that everyone else is too scared to say for fear of losing an election...the TRUTH.
The question was:
Let me start with a question. In all seriousness, if you want to pass, please pass it. We don't have much time.
Every president, if you look back to Ike, was elected to fill the problem of the previous president. We are, of course, correcting all the time in this country; it's how democracy works.
How will you be different, in any way, from President George W. Bush?
Every candidate up there did their best to jump into that questions trap, except Giuliani, his answer was:
Giuliani: I think we should remind ourselves, because I remember it every day, that on September 11th, 2001, we thought we were going to be attacked many, many times between then and now.
We haven't been. I believe we had a president who made the right decision at the right time on September 20th, 2001, to put us on offense against terrorists. I think history will remember him for that. And I think we as Republicans should remind people of that.
Good for Rudy for saying what no one dares to anymore....the truth.
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