Amusing Thoughts About the Debate (UPDATED)

For some unknown reason, I decided to watch the Republican debate last night. I missed the Democratic debate on Sunday, but thanks to YouTube, I was able to see Obama’s smackdown of John Edwards. The Republican debate was not as lively — although it was amusing when Sen. McCain said “muchas gracias” to Tom Tancredo. Nevertheless, David Weigel of Reason was able to make it amusing with his live commentary. Here are some highlights:

7:40: And God literally strikes Rudy with lightning. Multiple times.

7:50: Romney and Rudy agree: Let’s launch a major national project, paid for with tax cuts and a kissing booth, to solve the energy crisis…

7:53: When it comes to the energy question, Paul is the only Republican on the stage.

8:38: Romney’s pretty positive that no illegal immigrants are watching his Spanish ads.

8:50: “What does it mean to be American?” Tancredo: “To not be a Mexican.” (Paraphrase.)

UPDATE: In all seriousness, I was not impressed by the debate. Romney seems to be the only candidate to realize that optimism is the most desirable characteristic that any candidate can have. Unfortunately, he does more talking about optimism than actually conveying it.

The one bright spot in my mind was Giuliani’s discussion of health care. Our friend James Pethokoukis agrees:

…In his closing answer, Giuliani said the candidate who can unite the Republican Party is a person who will fight the war on terrorism and “second, someone who will be on offense for a growth economy. Fight this impulse to raise taxes, do socialized medicine . . . .” Then Blitzer cut him off. Giuliani also gave the most informative—or at least the most interesting—all-around answer about healthcare. The former mayor of New York City out “libertarianed” Don Knotts look-alike (more Hurley from Three’s Company than Barney from The Andy Griffith Show) Ron Paul when he suggested that Big Business and Big Government get out of the healthcare business:

“Health insurance should become like homeowners insurance or like car insurance: You don’t cover everything in your homeowners policy. If you have a slight accident in your house, if you need to refill your oil in your car, you don’t cover that with insurance. But that is covered in many of the insurance policies because they’re government dominated and they’re employer dominated.”