The Bloomberg Republican Debate

Posted on October 12, 2011 at 7:08 am by Bob Cesca

The two most striking things about last night’s debate were, 1) the virtual absence of Rick Perry, and 2) the utter dominance of Herman Cain’s completely unrealistic and dangerous 9-9-9 plan. In fact, regarding the latter, the number 9 was spoken 102 times, according to ThinkProgress.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum said we should “go to war with China” during a rant about trade. I think he meant it figuratively, but when a nation like China owns a considerable portion of our debt, it’s not particularly smart to mention going to war with that nation.

Michele Bachmann thinks that, under Obamacare, a 15-member panel (a “death panel”?) will make healthcare decisions for all 300 million Americans. If she’s right (she’s not) then each panel member will be responsible for organizing healthcare for 20 million people. Good luck, panel-members!

And the coverage was predictable. They evidently had a team of reporters who were feverishly fact-checking the candidates, but we were only treated to one checked fact. Meanwhile, there was zero analysis as to whether or not any of the Republican economic proposals were actually practical, workable solutions. That’s exactly what voters need to hear in these things. Instead of telling us that a candidate made up a statistic, how about telling voters whether 9-9-9 will work or not.

And finally, here’s Politifact’s fact-check tally.

Print Friendly
This entry was posted in Republican Party and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • GrafZeppelin127

    I think Sullivan said it best:

    8.05 pm. Romney actually said that Obama had divided the country and blamed other people. I feel sick. That’s such a huge fucking lie, such a grotesque distortion of the last three years, it reminds me why I can’t stand the guy. A Ken doll capable of saying anything.

    8.11 pm. … You begin to see the entire alternative universe. … So far, this is actually an interesting conflict between the liberal intelligentsia of Bloomberg and the WaPo meeting … well, aliens. The questions keep referring to a world that the candidates do not believe exists.

    8.36 pm. …None of these people seem close to grasping the reality of the last four years. And yet they talk as if it’s self-evident that the president is completely out of his depth. The sheer contempt for Obama is staggering to me. He really is a “boy” to them.

    9.44 pm. … They have constructed a version of the president that is completely of their own imagination.

    9.52 pm. … I have to say the level of debate, the other-worldly discussion in which so often up is down, and white is black, and our urgent priorities today are to ensure that 40 million people lose their health insurance and that Wall Street be deregulated more thoroughly than in the 2000s … well it’s disorienting. … I really don’t know what to say to this. I find it surreal.

    That just about sums it up. The entire frame of reference for the entire Republican field is a world that doesn’t exist, a president who doesn’t exist, a health-care law that doesn’t exist, taxes that don’t exist, regulations that don’t exist, a history that doesn’t exist, and whole categories of people who don’t exist.

    • Clancy

      “The entire frame of reference for the entire Republican field is a world that doesn’t exist, a president who doesn’t exist, a health-care law that doesn’t exist, taxes that don’t exist, regulations that don’t exist, a history that doesn’t exist, and whole categories of people who don’t exist.”

      - Then, these candidates should be very appealing to the GOP base who believe all these false things. That’s the truly sad thing about the state of the GOP field: they are clearly representative of their party membership.

  • missliberties

    I don’t get it. All the nominees act like THEY can make policy. They can’t.

    It is the Congress that makes policy.

    So all the campaign promises on policy mean nothing unless you get your ideas written into law.

    President’s set priorities but they can’t really make policy. All this talk about I will repeal and mandate such and such on the first day, is simply bs.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rick-Janes/607039439 Rick Janes

      Excellent comment, missliberties. It’s too bad people with your intellect aren’t there to ask idiots like Cain the obvious question: “How are you going to get this 9-9-9 thing through Congress?”

      • missliberties

        All Presidential candidates make this mistake, frankly. And the media should at least mention where the laws are made. The President just sets the priorities.

        Dictator Bush whom some liberals seem to envy because he drove his agenda through, are angry that Obama has not used the same type tactics authoritarian bullying to get his way.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rick-Janes/607039439 Rick Janes

          This is one of those conundrums faced by progressives — whether or not to use the deplorable tactics of the right to further a progressive agenda and elect candidates who will emulate the authoritarians in pushing through their programs. I think it’s better, if slower, to take a different course, such as the OWS movement eschewing violence, honoring democratic participation, and refusing to bait the police; and as agonizing as it is when Obama tries to compromise with the crazed Teabaggers of the GOP, in the long run Obama’s civility and attempts to be bipartsan mitigates the right-wing propaganda that he’s a fascist-Marxist thug forcing his unpopular policies on the nation. Would anyone seriously want Obama to act like Bush or, worse, Cheney?

          • missliberties

            Yes I think there many who would like to see him just steamroll in his agenda.

            The problem is the backlash.

            Today’s GOP, remember, are the ones that forcefully defended Bush and his utterly failed policies. Most won’t admit the abject failure of the Bush Presidency. Their recent past embarasses them. Their children voted for Obama. That embarasses them.

            I don’t know if you have seen the interview with George Clooney who declares that liberals are a fickle bunch for not being loyal to their Presidential candidate for purists reasons, x, y and z. It’s stupid. Part of the reason the GOP has been successful is they have had loyalty and patience to achieve their agenda. Liberals just can’t seem to abide not getting everything they want now. As an example I would cite the hysteria of gay rights. They got most of what they wanted, and are still sure that Obama is evil for not supporting gay rights.

  • trgahan

    And it is things like this debate that show why almost every two weeks a new “favorite” emerges from the clown car. Yeah, they peddle a false reality that their (small) base loves to delude itself with and the media loves to report as potentially true. But the reality is that the sole purpose of the Republican opposition right now is to ensure nothing happens that hampers the wealthy and powerful in this country. And nothing right now scares the wealthy and powerful more than a second term minority President.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HJQZNEMP3VFXHGEVZPPFTI5JSE Bawlin' John Bohner

    I think the most telling thing, and I’m sure not caught by the drooling nitwits in the Republican party, was that this collection of candidates does NOT want a single job created while Mr. Obama is president. That’s bad, but that the “independents” will vote for such heinous individuals is worse.

  • ThoseNerds

    What I find the most mind numbing is that fact all the Republicans have clearly only seen Obama through the lens of Fox and conservative media. I believe that they actually think he is stupid. Its painfully obvious that these guys believe that a Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann would look like intellectual equals next to Obama. They are of course completely wrong.

    • i_a_c

      Once, Pres. Obama pronounced “corpsman” phonetically, i.e., incorrectly. If you watch Sean Hannity’s show, this is the instance that they use as “proof” that Pres. Obama is an idiot. The difference between Pres. Obama and certain other presidents *cough*W*cough* is that you know damn well that this president will never make that mistake again. On the other hand, certain other presidents continued to pronounce “nuclear” “nucyooler” for eight years.

      Yes, they have deluded themselves into thinking the president is stupid. I don’t know why; perhaps some of them are so offended by the notion that a brilliant, articulate black man was elected president that they have to completely distort reality to fit their comfort zone.

      I don’t think any of the Republican candidates are a sure bet to beat Obama, for the sole reason that the presidential debates are going to happen, and Obama will wipe the floor with whoever the Republican nominee ends up being. The nutters are in for a wake-up call that their party is not running against some pushover.

  • dildenusa

    It doesn’t look like I missed much. Truthfully, with scum bags like the Koch Roaches using their money to fund business and political influence groups, these debates are mostly theater.

    Herman Cain, like Carence Thomas, and millions of others from minority ethnic groups, used affirmative action to get where they are, and now scum bags like Cain and Thomas want to pull the ladder up behind them to keep all the other minorities down on the farm. There is no other word for that except “chutzpah.”

    And Rick Perry who graduates college with a C average in a major like Animal Husbandry, shows his bona fides by using nut job Christian preachers to browbeat Mitt Romney. Please, give me a break. All modern religious beliefs are cultish. So who else? Bachmann, Santorum, Paul? did I miss anybody? I hope so.

  • adks

    “Instead of telling us that a candidate made up a statistic, how about telling voters whether 9-9-9 will work or not.”

    Don’t worry Bob, Michelle Bachman said that if you turn 999 upside down, you get 666, which is the sign of the Devil. The only people who would bother to watch the debate, other than the blog-o-pundit-sphere, would be the evangelical X-tians, who would immediately understand from that comment that the plan won’t work. Thus, there is no need for any other explanation of the 999 plan.

    Next up for the clown car, listening to Beatles albums played backwards for the secret message “Obama is a Muslim”.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rick-Janes/607039439 Rick Janes

      The confounding thing is that Cain’s ’999′ plan would not directly create one job and yet I have not heard the MSM holding his feet to the fire on that one. As usual in the economic magical thinking of the right, magnanimous rich folks will deign to give work to the peons now that they’re only paying 9 percent of their income in taxes. Oh, and Cain himself will get a hefty tax cut, another little factoid ignored at these debates.