A G K Y R A

Here is a transcript of the Republican Presidential Debate held Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California (right next door to my hometown, Thousand Oaks).

Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is a fantastic speaker, personable, warm, great at thinking on his feet, and with a lot of diplomatic sense. I would love to see him in a prominent position in the next Republican administration. He’s young enough that I think he could make a great presidential candidate in the future. For now, though, he’s still learning on the job, as his earlier comments on the economic stimulus plan showed.

Romney on Iraq

The big argument of the debate was over whether Mitt Romney supports or supported a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He made it very clear in the debate: contrary to what John McCain has been saying, Romney emphatically does not support a timetable. The problem is that, in an interview with Good Morning America, Romney said the following:

“Well, there’s no question that the president and Prime Minister Al Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about, but those shouldn’t be for public pronouncement. You don’t want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you’re gonna be gone. You want to have a series of things accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and Iraqi police and the leadership of the Iraqi government.” It was then pointed out to Romney that President Bush has said he would not support anything from Congress with a date certain for withdrawal. He was asked where he stands and if he would do the same. His response:

“Well, of course, can you imagine the setting where during the second world war we said to the Germans, ‘Gee if we haven’t reached the Rhine by this date, well, we’ll go home’ or ‘if we haven’t gotten this accomplished we’ll pull up and leave.’ You don’t publish that to your enemy or they’ll just lie and wait til that time. So, of course, you have to work together to create timetables and milestones, but you don’t do that with the opposition.” (transcript courtesy of FirstRead at MSNBC.com, where you can also watch a video of the original GMA interview)

Romney was clearly saying that he does support a definite timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, only he doesn’t think it should be public knowledge. In other words, we start withdrawing on some predetermined but secret future date. If the timetable or milestones become public knowledge, the insurgents will hide out (”wait in the weeds”) until we’re gone. If that’s not what Romney meant, he was very foolish to use the words “timetable” and “milestone” when — as McCain rightly pointed out in the debate — those are buzzwords for a definite withdrawal date. Fine, let’s take Romney’s word for it that he doesn’t support a timetable or milestones for a troop withdrawal, whether worked out in secret or made known to the world. I still don’t trust him because I don’t then know what he means because he doesn’t choose his words carefully enough. Either that or he chose “timetables” and “milestones” precisely because he wanted people to think he supported them but wanted to be able to deny it later. It doesn’t reflect well on his character or competency in any case.

Another concern, perhaps a minor one, was Romney’s unwillingness to take a stand on the troop surge in Iraq in December 2006, back when he was Governor of Massachusetts. The first part of his answer was that as a Governor, he was responsible for his state and didn’t take a position on a lot of federal issues. The problem with his answer is that, as Governor, he was also commander-in-chief of the National Guard and Reserve troops of his state, who would be involved in or affected by the troop surge, so it’s not like this was a strictly federal issue that only had a tangential relationship to his gubernatorial duties. He went on to say that as soon as he got a full briefing on the surge he supported it.

The President Runs the Economy?

“What makes you more qualified than Romney to run the economy?” was one of the questions asked to McCain. That is what’s known as the fallacy of the complex question — you’re probably more familiar with the classic example “have you stopped beating your wife?” Ron Paul chimed in with the correct answer: it’s not the President’s job to run the economy! Not only is it not his job, he can’t do it! It’s like asking whether McCain is more qualified than Romney to end the drought in the south. Our economy doesn’t get “run.” The President doesn’t have a control panel with buttons and levers he can pull to make adjustments to the economy. The economy is just the aggregate of all the individual decisions of households and businesses. Do you want the President to have total control over your life? No? Then don’t ask him to run the economy.

Vladimir Putin: The Ultimate Bond Villain

My favorite question of the debate was this:

President Bush once said he looked into the eyes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and found him to be, “very straightforward and trustworthy,” and that he “got a sense of his soul.” Senator McCain says he looks into Putin’s eyes and he sees three letters — KGB.

When you look at President Putin, what do you see?

I’ve always thought that Putin looks like the ultimate foe of James Bond and could have a great career in screen acting when he retires from government. He was, after all, a real life KGB agent! Take a look at these pictures and tell me if you don’t agree:

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard much about the Florida Democratic Primary held today, there’s a simple reason. The Democratic National Committee (i.e., the national party organization) decided to penalize Florida voters for moving up the date of their primary election. Democratic Party rules stipulate that only certain states’ parties could hold their primaries before Super Tuesday, but the Florida legislature and governor opted to move up the date of their primary to today. In retaliation, the DNC stripped Florida Democrats of their 210 delegates to the national convention that will choose their party’s candidate for the presidency. You can read about it at The Green Pages. The earlier primary date also violates Republican Party rules, but the RNC only stripped Floridian Republicans of half their delegates, not all of them. The state will have less influence than it otherwise would at the Republican national convention, but at least Floridians are getting a vote and it will help determine the party’s nominee — you’ve seen all the time Republican candidates have spent tramping up and down Florida.

You will also recall all the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election because some small number of votes in Florida weren’t counted. Do you remember all the righteous indignation expressed by Democrats about the voice of the people not being heard, people being denied their rights, etc.?

What happened to all these principles they wanted to fight for? Funny they don’t seem to care so much about what Floridians think now.