Talky talky

I can't stomach presidential debates for either party a year and half before the election, so I'll let Digby sum up the GOP debate tonight:

The rhetoric coming out of these guys is really quite extreme, even by GOP standards, but I guess that's just because the front runners are all a bunch of flipflopping hypocrites who have to fake some kind of red-meat qualifications for the base. They've opted for bullying machismo, which is actually quite smart. It's the tie that binds. They certainly have given up on the "law 'n order" platform with their nearly unanimous support for a Scooter pardon -- especially the ex-federal prosecutor Giuliani who couldn't stop whining and twisting his little lace hankie about how unfair it all was.

I think McCain did well tonight, with a little of his old fashioned patented "straight talk" about bush screwing up the war and defending his unpopular stance on immigration. He sounded more like his old self. He apparently isn't a racist and/or actually recognizes that the Republican party is busily pounding nails in its own electoral coffins with their rather, shall we say, intemperate views on illegal immigration, considering just how big and growing the hispanic population in this country is.

I suppose there are people who have to watch the debates, because it's their job, but otherwise I just don't get it. Surely most people would rather watch super models eat snails on islands while singing.

If we had a parliamentary system I suppose it's possible the government would have fallen by now, but we don't, and it hasn't, so at least until late fall the attraction of watching Wolf Blitzer talk is lost on me.