Andrew Sullivan, the Dish at the Daily Beast: “The winners tonight were the Fox interviewers, Baier and Wallace, who pulled no punches in this battle and asked some very tart and tough questions of the various candidates. I think Bachmann is the current front-runner in Iowa and the debate tonight will cement her status. T-Paw was better; Romney came across as even shiftier than usual; Huntsman let his nerves get the better of him; Ron Paul’s freshness has waned; Herman Cain was hopeless; Gingrich was very very angry; and Santorum is so exercized about Iran he even wandered into a defense of gays! Awesome.”
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones: “I thought tonight’s debate was much closer than the last one. I didn’t really see any clear winners or losers … I’m obviously not the target audience for these folks, so it hardly matters what I thought about them. Still, what’s so striking about this group is that aside from Ron Paul there’s just hardly any real daylight between them. The questioners tried mightily to provoke some arguments, and they did manage to get a few small ones going over relative minutia, but for the most part they’re still just trying to out-tea party each other.”
David Weigel at Slate: “It wasn’t the stiffest of competitions, but this was the best, most clarifying debate between the Republican candidates.”On Bachmann’s performance: “The best thing that happened to her was the question about whether she’d be ‘submissive’ to her husband if she was president. The boos lasted for an uncomfortably long time; she gamely, sarcastically thanked Byron York for the question. It was yet another moment for her to prove that the media treats her unfairly. And since it was the only question on social issues that was directed to her, she missed, one more time, a chance to respond to the damaging ‘ex-gay clinic’ story.”
The Caucus at the New York Times: “As they tried to blame President Obama for the nation’s lowered credit rating, the Republican presidential candidates who squared off Thursday night in Iowa made several misleading, incomplete or simply false claims…Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota repeated her assertion that ‘we should not have increased the debt ceiling .. In the last two months, I was leading on the issue of not increasing the debt ceiling,’ she said. ‘That turned out to be the right answer.’ The ratings agency that lowered the credit rating, Standard & Poor’s …lamented in its report on the downgrade that ‘the statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.’ It was Republicans in Congress who made it a bargaining chip.
Politifact: “Bachmann said raising the debt ceiling gave Obama a “blank check.” PolitiFact Virginia checked that when Eric Cantor said it about a debt ceiling plan from Harry Reid and found it False.”
Tina Korbe at Hot Air: “In general, I prefer to reward action over inaction and I respect the willingness of these candidates to “put themselves out there” tonight, but I have to agree with the cliche: Rick Perry was the real winner tonight.”
Ed Morrissey also at Hot Air: “I tweeted that [‘Rick Perry was the real winner tonight’] as the debate ended, Tina, and Chuck Todd followed it by predicting that sentiment would be the trite, cliche tweet of the night — but I think it was true to some extent. As the gloves came off between Pawlenty and Bachmann, then Santorum and Paul, and all night between Newt Gingrich and the same Fox News that employs him, it seemed that the entire debate ran off the rails.”
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“In America today‚ 2024, women have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers had, because of Donald Trump. I don’t think we’re going to let him get away with it, do you?”
— President Biden at a campaign stop in Tampa, reported by Tampa Bay Times.
“Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims of a potential crime. … The migrants are eligible for these protections because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement, after they said they were tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts with false promises of jobs and other aid.”
“We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”
In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”
“The House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine. I served 20 years in the military, it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I serve with some real scumbags. Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
“Joe Biden will land a major union endorsement Wednesday from North America’s Building Trades Unions, whose leaders say the president has his infrastructure bill largely to thank for it,” CNN reports. “In making one of their earliest ever presidential endorsements, NABTU leaders are kickstarting an eight-figure organizing program to try to deliver their 250,000 members in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden.”
A new Siena poll finds that by a 54% to 30% margin, New Yorkers say Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial is “legitimate” — the view of 77% of Democrats and 44% of independents — rather than a “witch hunt,” the view of 66% of Republicans.
A new Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally among registered voters, 51% to 48%. In a multi-candidate field, Biden is up by five percentage points against Trump, 43% to 38% among registered voters, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14%, Cornel West at 2%, and Jill Stein at 2%.Among those who definitely plan to vote, Biden leads Trump 46% to 39% in this same multi-candidate field.
NBC News poll: “‘Protecting democracy’ is a salient issue for voters. There’s a difference between what voters identify as the ‘most important issue facing the country’ (on that, “inflation and the cost of living’ registers 23%, followed by immigration/the border, at 22%) and what they identify as the issue most important in determining their own vote (on that, ‘protecting democracy or constitutional rights’ was on top with 28%, followed by immigration/the border at 20% and abortion at 19%).”
Ah yes, nicely put, evreyone.