The Art of the Scorecard

There was one big loser in the debate, as the Nation's John Nichols reminds us:

"Even the Republicans who supposedly like Bush played the president's failures for laughs.

"What may have been the best line of the night came when first-term Bush Cabinet member Tommy Thompson referenced his former boss's lack of diplomatic skills in his reply to the what-do-you-do-with-Bush question.

" 'I would certainly not send him to the United Nations,' said Thompson.

"Speaking of the Bush administration, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services told the Republican-leaning crowd at the debate in the first primary state of New Hampshire: 'We went to Washington to change Washington. Washington changed us.' At least Thompson said 'we.'

"The other candidates were less generous. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Bush 'bungled Katrina,' suggesting that not just the president but the Republican Party 'lost credibility' when White House failed to respond quickly or effectively when a deadly hurricane struck New Orleans in 2005.

"Running down a long list of Bush administration failures, Huckabee said of the mid-term election thumping the party took in 2006: 'We didn't do what we were hired to do and the people fired us. The Republican Party as a whole deserved to get beat.'

"McCain agreed. 'We let spending get out of control,' he said of the Bush years. 'We presided over the largest increase in the size of government since [Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's] Great Society. And our constituents and our Republican [backers] became dispirited and disenchanted.'

"What of Bush's signature issue: the Iraq invasion and occupation?

"Both McCain and Romney said the commander-in-chief blew it early on. 'I think we were under-prepared and under-planned for what came after we knocked down Saddam Hussein,' explained Romney.

"McCain, who made the amazing admission that he voted to authorize Bush to attack Iraq without reading the National Intelligence Estimate of risks associated with the invasion, said, 'This war was very badly mismanaged for a long time.' "

Now for some BREAKING NEWS: