The Big GOP Debate Thread

Last night's GOP foreign policy debate in South Carolina went pretty much exactly as you expected it to.  CNN's Peter Hamby noted that the Clown Car Crew put up an increasingly awful isolationist front, starting with Rick Perry:

Perry said that's the amount of foreign aid every country in the world would receive at the outset of his administration. Each nation would then have to explain why they deserve American funds -- even Israel. Perry later clarified that Israel, a staunch ally, would continue to receive "substantial" money from Washington.

The proposal was a warning shot to Pakistan, which continues to receive billions of dollars in aid from the United States even though its intelligence services have been linked to terrorists.

Several of the candidates seemed to agree with Perry, even former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who said aid to Pakistan should be zeroed out and re-evaluated. And so, not only did Perry escape Spartanburg without another embarrassing gaffe on his hands, he actually made news with a policy proposal.

Then the second tier tore into the media.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann was handed an opportunity to take a similar path on Saturday when CBS Political Director John Dickerson accidentally copied a Bachmann aide on an email saying that the candidate was largely irrelevant and would not be asked many questions in the debate.

The Bachmann campaign called on Dickerson to be fired and accused the network of sidelining a candidate based on her diminished standing in the polls.

Bachmann's campaign manager stormed through the post-debate spin room and called Dickerson a "piece of sh-t" and a "fraud." Dickerson's response: "Bachmann is at 4% in the polls and has been for a while. Other candidates aren't. I sent an email based on that."

Because it's the media's fault Michele Bachmann is in the single digits, you know.  Has nothing to do with her policies or her totally crazy ideas.  Finally, Mittens didn't screw up.

Improbably, after 10 presidential debates -- or is it 11? - the putative GOP frontrunner survived unscathed once again. His rivals, particularly Perry and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, will almost certainly pick apart his answers on the foreign policy front.

But Romney has yet to suffer the kind of campaign-altering blunder that these nationally televised debates tend to produce. And this is in a presidential campaign that has been almost entirely defined by the marathon debate schedule.

Who CNN didn't mention at all in the article?  The supposedly "surging" New Gingrich was ignored.

All these debates prove that once again the most qualified person in the race right now is Barack Obama.  But please, keep reminding people of that, guys.

Oh and if you're worried about Michele Bachmann, even the SC GOP threw her under the bus. They want nothing to do with her either.