Posted on 12/16/2011 8:02:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I can't guarantee you that this will be the last video we post from last night's debate, but it's probably going to be the most memorable — after Rick Perry's gestalt-grasping clip in which he declared himself the “Tim Tebow of the Iowa Caucuses,” that is. In this clip, Michele Bachmann goes after Ron Paul on Iran and national security as if she takes him seriously. Paul is reduced to sputtering a non-sequitur about how wrong it is to declare war on 1.2 billion Muslims, which isn’t at all what Bachmann said, and more or less becomes unable to complete most of his own sentences, the majority of which are also non-sequiturs. No matter what one thinks of Bachmann, you can’t deny her ability to get under the skin of other candidates:
One of my favorite moments in this debate came when Paul tells Bachmann that the “UN” never said any such thing, and then in the next breath says they weren’t telling the truth when they did. It provoked a few laughs from the audience and a whole avalanche of derision on Twitter. The mask well and truly slipped for Paul in this final debate.
So how did the Republican candidates do? Mitt Romney started off strong and was having one of his best debates in weeks until Chris Wallace asked him about his position switches on abortion, gay rights, and gun laws. He gave a good answer on his transformation to pro-life, but left himself wide open on gay rights. Rick Santorum had his best moment of the debate when he methodically walked through what Romney actually did and said on defending marriage. That didn’t turn the night into a disaster, but Romney didn’t finish strong. Santorum did well last night, too, and given his blanketing of Iowa for the last several months, might have given voters there a reason to give him a second look.
Gingrich had a better debate all the way through, but he took a few slings and arrows along the way. He took some hits on Freddie Mac again, especially from Bachmann, but gave a good rebuttal to those attacks — although clearly no one is thinking that Freddie Mac hired him as a historian. Bachmann scored on the argument that one doesn’t have to be a formal lobbyist to influence people in Washington, and it seems foolish to argue that Freddie Mac didn’t hire him as a consultant for his influence on public policy as a former Speaker. No one is buying the “historian” idea. Otherwise, Gingrich gave a feisty and charismatic performance, or at least charismatic in Gingrich’s terms. He didn’t do any damage to himself, and at the least Gingrich gave himself some room to reclaim a little of his lost momentum.
Rick Perry had the best risk/reward outcome in the debate. As I predicted, no one on stage went on the attack against Perry, and that meant Perry didn’t have to go on the attack against anyone else. The Tebow reference was obviously planned, and brilliant; it’s catchy, timely, easily understood as a deep underdog prevailing through faith in himself and God despite being dismissed by everyone else as the clock starts running out. Perry didn’t get quite as much face time as other candidates, but he made the most of it. After two good debates, and this latest especially strong performance, Perry now gets to do the retail politicking at which he excels without having to engage in any extemporaneous exchanges with other candidates. He could turn this into a comeback, and really be the Tim Tebow of the Iowa Caucuses. Don’t count him out.
As for Bachmann, she had a good evening as well, but made a couple of big mistakes. After scoring points on Gingrich on Freddie Mac, she overshot the mark by accusing Gingrich of trying to elect Republicans who back infanticide. Gingrich slapped back at Bachmann for not getting her facts straight, which has been a problem for Bachmann in the past. Even though Bachmann has regularly attacked other candidates for not telling the truth, at least as she sees it, she protested that her status as a candidate for President of the United States means that her facts are straight, and that it’s “outrageous” to suggest otherwise:
Bachmann earlier had cited Politifact as stating that she had all her facts straight in the last debate, a strange thing to do since Politifact has been roundly critical of Bachmann’s debate claims for months. Sure enough, immediately after the debate, they gave her a Pants On Fire rating for that claim:
At that point, Bachmann jumped back in. “Well, after the debates that we had last week, PolitiFact came out and said that everything that I said was true. And the evidence is that Speaker Gingrich took $1.6 million. You don’t need to be within the technical definition of being a lobbyist to still be influence-peddling with senior Republicans in Washington, D.C., to get them to do your bidding.”
Wait… what? We said that “everything” Bachmann had said was true?
Actually, that’s not what we said.
At the Dec. 10 debate she was referring to, PolitiFact checked two claims from Bachmann and rated them Mostly True and Pants on Fire.
The fact-check she may have been referencing was, “In 1993, Newt Gingrich ‘first advocated for the individual mandate in health care. And as recently as May of this year, he was still advocating’ for it.” We rated that one a Mostly True.
But we also rated her claim that Mitt Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, “put into place socialized medicine.” We found that was ridiculously false and rated it Pants on Fire.
Her comment about our ratings was also a bit of a non-sequitur. Neither of the two items we checked addressed the subject at hand — Gingrich’s work for Freddie Mac, what he thinks of Freddie Mac today, or whether Gingrich was ever a lobbyist.
Maybe Bachmann was simply trying to burnish her image as a truth teller. However, using PolitiFact to back up that assertion is a bit unusual. Her PolitiFact report card shows 59 percent of her statements rated have earned either a False or Pants on Fire. She has earned five Trues, three Mostly Trues, six Half Trues, seven Mostly Falses, 19 Falses and 11 Pants on Fires.
That’s so easily checkable that it’s almost unbelievable that Bachmann would cite Politifact as a specific authority on the subject. Has she not read their site and their evaluations of her statements? Their evaluations certainly put paid to the notion that being a presidential candidate means one should just assume you have your facts straight, too.
As for Jon Huntsman, it’s hard to see why he bothered to show up. He isn’t competing meaningfully in Iowa anyway. Huntsman didn’t offer any compelling narrative or responses last night, so he would have done better for his campaign to stay in New Hampshire and do some retail politicking in a state he’s taking seriously.
RE: Western “intrusion” into the Middle East has given those nations wealth and power with the only thing they have to offer the world: Oil.
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I believe Ron Paul is referring to our unqualified support for Israel, “THE LITTLE SATAN” ( note the quotes ). This support for Israel ( Including helping arm her ) gives us the hated Middle Eastern monicker, “THE GREAT SATAN”.
In Paul’s eyes, the sooner we abandon Israel, the less chances of our being attacked...
RE: Western “intrusion” into the Middle East has given those nations wealth and power with the only thing they have to offer the world: Oil.
_________________________
I believe Ron Paul is referring to our unqualified support for Israel, “THE LITTLE SATAN” ( note the quotes ). This support for Israel ( Including helping arm her ) gives us the hated Middle Eastern monicker, “THE GREAT SATAN”.
In Paul’s eyes, the sooner we abandon Israel, the less chances of our being attacked...
I haven’t heard Ron Paul advocate open borders. You are making that up out of thin air, pal.
Bachman said that an “avowed madman” was going to drop nuclear bombs and Israel and American and then go on to take over the whole world.
“They’re hellbent on bringing the Mahdi to earth by washing the world in blood.”
I think that is why there is so much domestic discord and strife. The sane Persians realize they will be caught up in the same retributive firestorms as the aspiring martyrs, and are desperate to stop it.
Whether we supported Israel or not, the region holds significant strategic importance for us and other nations. If they don’t like Western influence, they would have loved Soviet domination or really enjoy potential Chinese overlords.
LOL, thanks!
Okay, not fully open borders, but the LP platform is considerably more open borders than I would be comfortable with.
Ron Paul took himself down, just like Bachmann did to herself.
He seriously thinks that reducing nuclear weapons will keep Iran from having nukes?
He’s a moron.
The muslims aren’t attacking us because we are bombing them, we weren’t bombing them in 2001.
Ron Paul, a moron extreme.
He needs to be shown the Quran.
He wants the UN report?
Since when is the UN an authority of anything?
RE: The muslims aren’t attacking us because we are bombing them, we weren’t bombing them in 2001.
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Oh but we were.... remember the first Gulf War to take Saddam out of Kuwait? ( Ron Paul was against that too ). Of course, don’t forget the regular bombings of Iraq when Clinton was President. And oh yeah, Ron Paul did not like our involvement in Bosnia as well ( that was in the 1990’s ).
And of course to Ron Paul, this is the biggie -— We support and have always supported, “The Little Satan”, Israel ( which of course, in Ron Paul’s mind, makes us the BIG SATAN in the Islamic world ).
I know.
The response to RuPaul is:
Lockerbie, Achille Lauro, the Marine Barracks, etc.
They attacked us first, it’s about time we noticed.
Besides which, Saddam repeatedly violated his 1991 surrender agreement.
The surrender agreement stated that violating it meant an immediate return to a state of war.
Unfortunately, Clintoon was too much of a wimp who hated those of us who served to invoke the surrender agreement “or Else” clause.
No, he figured he’d help out the Yugoslav muslims and get us embroiled in Bosnia.
It’s also high time somebody figured out that we only have one real ally in the mideast, and they DON’T bow to Mecca...
“When I listen to him (Ron Paul), I don’t THINK he wants to gut our defense...I THINK last night he said he wants a strong national defense. I just don’t THINK he wants to be all over the world in hassles that amount to U.S. money being spent, our soldiers blood being spilled and yet it’s not a war.”
That’s the big problem with Ron Paul. His replies are basically incoherent ramblings. You have to GUESS what he said.
And when you do a FACT CHECK on Bachmann's statements, Bachmann is totally full of crap.
"Los Angeles Times, Nov. 7:United Nations nuclear inspectors have concluded that Iran has acquired the technical means to design a nuclear weapon and would require about six months to enrich uranium to the quality needed for a bomb if it decided to do so, according to officials familiar with the evidence.
The Times story also said: “The IAEA report provides no ‘smoking gun’ proof that Iran’s government intends to build a nuclear weapon, said a European diplomat.” So, the country potentially would be months away from building a weapon, if it chose to do so, according to the Times’ unnamed sources.
But Bachmann gives the impression that Iran is actively working toward having that weapon within months, and the IAEA said it could not say for certain whether all of Iran’s nuclear activities were peaceful. “[T]he Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities,” the report said."
What irritates me most about this, is that I used to like Bachmann when she first got into the race. But the more I hear from her on foreign policy -- and especially on Israel where her eyes glaze over and she seems disconnected from reality -- the more I have begun to think that she is actually some messianic religious looney determined to bring about Armageddon & hasten The Second Coming. If that's true, then Ahmadinejad isn't the only totally crazy we need to worry about on Iran.
RE: “The IAEA report provides no ‘smoking gun’ proof that Iran’s government intends to build a nuclear weapon, said a European diplomat.”
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In November 2011, the IAEA Board of Governors rebuked Iran following an IAEA report Iran had undertaken research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability.
See here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/18/us-nuclear-iran-iaea-idUSTRE7AG0RP20111118
It basically says that they are concerned that Iran might be pursuing nukes, but there is NO smoking gun evidence that they do.
Bachmann's wild-eyed statements on the rest -- that "it is confirmed Iran is on the verge of having a nuke and that Ahmedinjad has said that he will use it to blow up Israel" is propagandist, fear-mongering craziness -- a craziness that Fox seems to love whipping up a heaping dose of for its corporate masters.
RE: It basically says that they are concerned that Iran might be pursuing nukes, but there is NO smoking gun evidence that they do.
Let’s say that there is no smoking gun evidence, what should a responsible President do?
A) Leave them alone and assume that they are not enriching weapons grade uranium. In other words, give the Ayatollah’s the benefit of the doubt and BELIEVE whatever they say...
B) Prepare and Monitor IN CASE the smoking gun appears.
C) Wait until the evidence is ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that they have nuclear weapons before taking action.
As for Ahamdinejad threatening Israel, c’mon, you know that he has done that PUBLICLY on many occasions.
Here is just a sample result from google (Over ONE MILLION RESULTS):
Bachmann: Where Paul had talked about the danger of overreacting on Iran, she said it "would be that the greatest underreaction in world history if we have an avowed madman who uses that nuclear weapon to wipe nations off the face of the Earth and we have an IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report that recently came out that said literally, Iran is within just months from being able to obtain that weapon."
Paul: He responded, saying the IAEA report did not contain hard evidence of an imminent nuclear weapon. Paul was booed, while later a CNN "truth squad" said Paul was factually correct on this point.
He's right, we should wait for the mushroom cloud over Israel or NY City.
Then what?
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