The Anderson Debate

"Nonetheless, it's clear that today's Dixie-based, pro-torture, anti-immigrant GOP will find it very hard to accept the bipartisan, anti-torture supporter of comprehensive immigration reform as its candidate."

As for the torture question, "It's a defining issue and this was a defining moment. Romney's pathetic and despicable inability to say that he opposes waterboarding and that waterboarding is torture disqualifies him from the presidency, in my view."

Salon's Walter Shapiro hated the questions (and disagreed with me about Cooper's role):

"What sent me into a free fall of depression was CNN's instinct for the fatuous in choosing the debate questions. It is a disgrace that in a two-hour debate (it felt longer) there was not a single question about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the pow[d]er keg in Pakistan or Iran. The fault is not with the earnest YouTubers who sent in questions. The blame entirely rests with Anderson Cooper (a debate host who seemed incapable of asking a relevant followup question) and his CNN cohorts who seemed more concerned with goosing the ratings than with grasping the world that the next president will inherit."

How seriously is the press now taking the Huckabee candidacy? Enough so that the AP has called out the fact-checking dogs:

"Huckabee's campaign set up a 'truth squad' to push his side of various stories. It often offers, at best, an incomplete account of his record. On major issues:

"--The truth squad says the only finding by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that Huckabee accepted a gift improperly was tossed out by a state court. In fact, the panel investigated 16 complaints against Huckabee and found five violations. Only one, for accepting a $500 canoe from Coca-Cola, was tossed out.

"Two of the complaints against Huckabee pertain to unreported gifts -- the canoe and a $200 stadium blanket received by his wife, Janet. Two stem from cash the governor or his wife received but did not initially report. The panel also ruled in 2003 that Huckabee's campaign violated state law when it used its funds to pay for an event during the summer of 2002 called Gospel Fest

"During his tenure, Huckabee accepted 314 gifts valued overall at more than $150,000, according to documents filed with the Arkansas secretary of state's office. (He accepted 187 gifts in his first three years as governor but was not required to report their value.)"

My carefully considered reaction: A canoe?

Bill Clinton is stirring controversy again, this time on Iraq. At Red State, California Yankee checks the paper trail:

"Bill Clinton made a political blunder of monumental proportions when he claimed that he 'opposed the war in Iraq 'from the beginning,' a statement even the New York Times found 'is more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003.'