CNN finally made Fox News look legitimate last night when it co-sponsored the CNN/Youtube Republican debate. Granting more time to Mitt Romney and Rudolf Giuliani than any other candidates only confirmed the electorate's suspicions that the media is pushing for a general election between Guiliani/Romney and Hillary Clinton.

Tom Tancredo got a moment to mention that he has been ignored in all of the previous debates and was promptly ignored again.

Ron Paul's questions were mostly substance-free, forcing him to try to pack an elaborate political platform into 2 or 3 minutes while answering questions about whether he believes in conspiracies or what he'll do when he loses. Paul responded that the first question cited ideologies, not conspiracies (it wasn't about 9/11 truth), and the answer to the second question was 'stop running for president'. Anderson Cooper reminded him to stick to the question when he deviated into something that mattered.

Duncan Hunter had a clever response to the gun-enthusiast video. He chastized the questioner for throwing a firearm rather than hand it off properly. That made for an interesting commentary on the differences between anti-gun advocates' ideas of gun enthusiasts and the assertion of gun enthusiasts that firearms should be legal and handled responsibly. Other than that, Duncan Hunter didn't exist.

Mike Huckabee now supports the abolition of the IRS. He doesn't seem to know what the Fair Tax is, but he supports it too. No doubt, if Ron Paul had not gotten thunderous applause for the same position in previous debates, Huckabee would find something else to support. In-spite-of/because-of the fact that he is weakest on economic planning, he got some of the best economic questions. He remained weak.

All of the candidates want to fix Social Security, reduce the debt, stop deficit spending, stop borrowing money from China, and fix inflation. All but Paul want to continue the war indefintely. No one bothered to ask them how to achieve this financially impossible reconciliation.

McCain probably 'won', but only because he had ample time and he bothered to talk about some issues. He chastized Paul for supporting a troop withdrawl citing his authority to speak for all the troops because he broke bread with some four-star generals over Thanksgiving. As a former enlistedman, I can just imagine what the kid, who served McCain thanksgiving napkins in between combat missions, said under his breath about that. Paul returned that more troops send his campaign money than McCain's, but it was lost on the jeering crowd.

Mitt Romney again clarified his changing position on abortion. I thought his answer was satisfactory, but one wonders how many of the other candidates would have achieved satisfactory clearing-ups if they were allowed to have free reign to speak impulsively.

CNN was the worst culprit of the debate. They claimed that the questions came from "you, the voters", but they selected the nuttiest videos out of 5,000 entries.

These included a zombie-eyed kid who shoved the bible into the camera and demanded, several times, to know if the candidates believe "every word". The overwhelming response was fairly common among educated Christians; they believe in the metaphorical truths, but not the literal words. No doubt CNN failed to anticipate this, but every Republican on earth did.

They also included the frightening gun enthusiast, a slow-talker who ate subsidized corn on camera, several people with obviously fake or exaggerated southern accents, and they topped it off with an annoyingly long question, complete with an annoyingly long answer about why Giuliani supported the Red Sox in the World Series.

I walked away with a sickened feeling. It seemed like CNN wanted to make a freak show of the Republicans, but all they achieved was a confused panel candidates responding to an obviously-mocking group of morons. If CNN wanted delineate the issues, they should have asked John McLaughlin or Pat Buchanan to hit these candidates with real questions. If they wanted to prove Republicans have no substance, they should have asked substantive questions to see who floundered. Republicans are getting sick of Giuliani and Romney, yet their unfulfilled questions about other candidates will prompt them to vote for these two out of sheer exhaustion.

Sorry, I mispelled "Rudolph" among other things.

shoot your TV, there are good books and great music as alternatives.Analyzing the garbage spewn last night will give you brain damage.

The obvious agenda was to pump up Huckleberry Huckster. The republicans should bring in a whole new team - they all got suckered by CNN, and we can;t afford to have such dupes in charge of the country.

No surprises here.

The questions came via youtube users, hardly the bastion of intelligent thought and discussion.

Yeah, but you would think that some of them were normal enough for public consumption. There were 5,000 and CNN picked the 20 freaks.

I forgot to mention that Fred Thompson made a good point to the strange kid who did the jaw-agape-thing at the rolling national debt. He said "first thing I'm going to do is protect his generation from my generation". That's clever. And needed. And impossible with the war.

On the bright side, the quirky themes and questions kept the candidates on their toes and highlighted some weaknesses and strengths previously unnoticed within more conventional venues. Fred Thompson demonstrated his more serious side by looking fairly displeased about the debate throughout. As a contributor to the Weekly Standard noted, “My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar.” It might have been even more impressive if one the candidates had confidently came out and called the debate what it was.

None of the debates have been worth much. Wolf Blitzer set up Hillary for some heat on the driver's license thing and then invited other candidates to pile on.

The only people to talk for 20 minutes were Wolf, Hillary, Edwards and Obama.

Remember when the League of Women voters hosted the debates and how much better they were?