OK, now I need a shower

  Well, I girded my loins, as they said in the Old Testament, and watched a few minutes of the Republican debate last night on Fox. I’m sure anyone who’s interested either watched it themselves or read this morning’s batch of columns about it, so I won’t give a blow-by-blow description (sorry for the pun, Sen. Craig).

Anyway, besides the utter, total insanity of every single one of these shifty losers — with the exception of McCain, who ironically is the one usually thought of as literally insane — I was struck by how little these people have learned over the last few years.

Other than the always-contrarian Ron Paul, who is firmly against the war, every single Republican not only supports the war, the surge, and the current policy — they do so in glowing, almost romantic terms, eerily echoing the initial propaganda about the war five years ago. No lessons learned, no reflection, no if-I-were-president-I’d-do-such-and-such. Just, Iraq is teh kewl.

Only McCain seems to have weighed all the options in a rational manner. OK, he still thinks Iraq is teh kewl, and hence is totally unqualified for the White House, but I give him credit for at least being able to make a case. The other guys — again, Ron Paul excepted — are just parrots, without an original thought in their heads.

And Rudy? Don’t get me started. New York this, New York that, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11. Wash, rinse, repeat. The most one-issue campaign I’ve ever seen.

How any of these jokers expect to win an election on a total pro-Iraq war policy in a country that’s 70 percent against the war is beyond me. But hey, I’m not a Republican anyway, so I say go for it!

The other thing that stuck out was their utterly barbaric, almost psychopathic love for torture, which they always discussed with a smile from ear to ear. Not only can they not do enough of it — to anyone, anywhere, regardless of actual guilt or innocence — I’m almost certain they’d also like to torture those who don’t believe America should torture.

(Interestingly, McCain — the only one without a torture fetish, maybe because, oh say, he was actually a torture victim — actually got quite a bit of applause when he said any gain we get from torturing suspected terrorists is outweighed by the damage to America’s reputation. Maybe the Republican rank-and-file isn’t as barbaric as I previously thought. Oh, wait a minute — this debate was in New Hampshire! Wait ‘til they get down South, McCain would have been tarred and feathered for that comment.)

The Colorado congressman and certified nutcase Tom Tancredo got quite detailed about torture, in the way that a writer of erotic fiction gets detailed about sex. This guy not only has devoted a lot of thought to the torture issue, but you can tell he really, really likes thinking about torture. Often.

Anyway, here’s my question: When Tancredo says he doesn’t think waterboarding should be considered torture, does he also think that if an American soldier is waterboarded by a foreign group, they’re not being tortured either?

I pose that question to any of you war-liking, Jack Bauer Republican types out there. Have at it. I won’t hold my breath for an answer.

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