In the seemingly endless series of
debates between the Republican presidential candidates that has so far
marked the 2012 campaign, debate #20, at the Mesa County Arts Center in
Arizona, where the state G.O.P. will hold its presidential primary next
week, was something of a dud. There were no moon colonies or $2.4 trillion "blank" checks or "oops" moments. No applause for executions or booing of gay soldiers.
Well, okay, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did accuse President
Barack Obama of voting, while in the Illinois state legislature, to
"legalize infanticide" (because of Obama's vote against a bill designed to chip away at abortion rights), but that's about as crazy as it got.
It
should have been a whole lot crazier, revealing once again the
derangement of the 21st-century Republican Party, but moderator CNN
moderator John King apparently thought it his job not to challenge the
candidates too terribly hard, lest he be derided as a member of the
media elite. So "elite" was one thing King proved he certainly was not
-- at least not in the realm of debate moderators.
Now
pulling ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the
national polls, former U.S. senator Rick Santorum saw his position in
the debate line-up change, occupying the center stage with Romney.
Santorum
has not failed to make news in the last several weeks, as his
opposition to the use of birth control has come to light, not to mention
the resurfacing, thanks to Right Wing Watch, of a 2008 speech
he delivered at Ave Maria University in which he claimed that Satan,
"the father of lies," had set his sights on the United States, and that
explained why universities were teaching bad things and why mainline
Protestant churches were no longer really Christian. READ MORE
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