Republican Debate Transcript

Here is the debate transcript and Times coverage.  I say a guy who can survive a lightning strike from God has to be the winner.

Let's note that, per the Times coverage, Rudy had yet another "I paid for this microphone" moment, bossing Wolf Blitzer around rather than meekly accepting instruction:

The Republican candidates were also asked if they would support pardoning I. Lewis Libby Jr. and while none of the top candidates said, outright, that they would take such a course if president, they also voiced dismay at his sentence of 30 months in prison. Mr. Giuliani was the most outspoken of the lead candidates, calling the sentence “way out of line.” Citing his experience both as a prosecutor and recommending pardons while working in the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan, he said he would seriously consider it, especially in light of the harsh sentence.

When Mr. Blitzer tried to cut him off, Mr. Giuliani stopped him, saying, “A man’s life is at stake.” He said that it was an “incomprehensible” situation made all the more disturbing because there was no underlying crime, and that he had a real problem with the sentence.

In the last debate, it was Giuliani that jumped in to criticize Ron Paul's history of the 9/11 attacks.

Comments

[Appalled Moderate]

Hmm. That will advance Giuliani's chances in the JOM primary...

[Cecil Turner]

Hopefully amongst any constituency that values due process. Personally think Rudy's underqualified as President . . . but he's an expert on prosecutorial overreach, and dead-on on this point.

[manys]

Dead-on? Really?

How is Libby's life at stake?

[Cecil Turner]

How is Libby's life at stake?

Perhaps in spending a significant proportion of what's left behind bars? "Liberty" might've been better phrasing, but the meaning was clear and I wouldn't quibble with it. Obviously you would . . . and you're welcome to it.

[manys]

Libby is a lawyer. He knew his liberty was at stake when he walked into the Grand Jury room.

Furthermore, in the same quote Rudy is appealing to his own authority as a former prosecutor and DOJ employee. He's not dumb like Dubya, he knows exactly what he's saying. Is there reason to assume otherwise?

[Cecil Turner]

Libby is a lawyer. He knew his liberty was at stake when he walked into the Grand Jury room.

He should've known his liberty wasn't at stake over a leak charge wherein he'd done nothing criminal. More fool him.

Furthermore, in the same quote Rudy is appealing to his own authority as a former prosecutor and DOJ employee.

He is an expert, and it's a judgment call. The qualifications are pertinent.

[maryrose]

Brownback said he would definitely pardon him and Thompson said it later on Fox News on Hannity. I think President Bush will pardon Libby because he knows this was a trumped up political case and Fitz was an unsupervised runaway prosecutor.I thought some of Blitzer's questions were a little weird-evolution and what did President Bush do wrong? Come on!

[JM Hanes]

I posted this over at Hot Air under Huckabee impresses at GOP debate before I realized their thread had degenerated into yet another gigantic creationism debate. So I thought I might as well bring it back over here.

An inspirational speaker would certainly make a nice change, but is that really all it takes to generate the remarkable enthusiasm for Huckabee [at Hot Air]? I combed the Debate Transcript looking for content that must have escaped me last night, and I’m still stumped. According to Huckabee:

**The Taliban don’t believe Ronald Reagan helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

**He believes in God, but isn’t sure whether it took Him 6 actual days or 6 metaphorical days to create the universe. We'’re left to take a wild guess at his position on teaching creationism in science class.

**Homosexuality is an attitude.

**Republicans reneged on promises to “cut spending, lower taxes, bring more government back to local people [is this code?],” botched Katrina and Iraq, ignored corruption and illegal immigrants.

**He thinks Americans are smart enough to know what the problems are, and faults Bush most for not communicating what the problems are.

**We should welcome professional immigrants, and make them cross the border one at a time.

**He’s not your Daddy’s anti-abortion pro-lifer. He is pro-Life at any stage, unlike pro-death jihadists. Being pro-life keeps us free.

I still don’t want to run right out and put him on the GOP ticket. What exactly am I missing?

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