At GOP Debate, CNN Sucks Up to Candidates, Letting Racism and Misogyny Slide

In Arizona, the answers given by the presidential contenders mattered less the questions never asked.

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