THE REPUBLICAN DEBATE

Brief comments:

Mitt Romney was clearly the most poised and articulate (and his hair is almost Reaganesque). McCain was the most energized and passionate. Giuliani seemed to wander around with his comments. But the top three remained the top three.

Mike Huckabee gave thoughtful responses - but he doesn't believe in evolution? Ron Paul was far removed from the others. And Tom Tancredo gets the wingnut prize for calling for repeal of the 16th Amendment.

So, was McCain a bit over the top? Did Giuliani too often hark back to 9/11? And is Romney too smooth by half?

Maybe the real winner is Fred Thompson

BUSH VETO

In justifying his veto of the troop funding bill, President Bush drags out some familiar scary reasons. Among these is the statement that if we stop attacking "them" over there, they will attack us here.

As we've pointed out before, "they", primarily Al Qaeda, are surely doing all they can right now to hurt us at home. And they have succeeded in other places such as Algiers. Iraq is not the keystone of our Islamic enemies. And Bush must know that he is misleading since so many experts have deemed this thought a fallacy.

Mr. Bush also likes to tell the American people that setting a withdrawal timetable allows the enemy to mark the calendar, lie low, plot and plan, then move in when we leave. As noted before, this is nonsense. When we do decide to withdraw, and plan the withdrawal, that will be common knowledge long before actual withdrawal starts.

Somewhat related: Borowitz had a good column today, an account of the administration's search for a Lying Czar to coordinate all the lying it does. Maybe this is needed, but it seems that the Bush administration is already extremely adept at lying and misleading.