Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Republican Debate

Three impressions from the CNN debate tonight at the Reagan Library:

1) Huckabee knows nothing about Russia. When asked for his opinion of Putin, he launched into generalities about human-rights abusers with no reference to Chechnya, the crackdown on the press, the murders of journalists, etc. I keep hearing that Huckabee is a sure thing as VP for McCain. How can McCain stay true to his basic platform--that America needs a leader with strong foreign-policy credentials--and choose Huckabee?

2) Presumably the seating order was random, but McCain looked quite old and slumped down next to Romney, who was crisp and presidential-looking as usual.

3) McCain's obsession with Romney's supposed "timetables" remark is backfiring. Romney made the reasonable point that a) he was talking about milestones for political progress, not withdrawal from Iraq; b) he (Romney), not McCain, was better qualified to know what he was saying (though Romney's penchant for flip-flops means that may not always be true). McCain undercuts his much-ballyhooed honor by pounding that issue so hard and (in this view) unfairly.