The Republican Youtube Debate

Question: How would you improve the image of America in the Muslim world?

Rudy Giuliani: Stay on offense.

John McCain: Continue the surge.

Duncan Hunter: I will never apologize for America.

And there you have it.

Question: Is waterboarding torture?

Romney: It's not my place to say. I'm against torture. But I think what happened to Khalid Sheik Muhammad should continue to happen.

McCain: I don't know how anyone could favor torture like waterboarding. [Good for McCain--ed.]

Question: What commitment will you make to the Iraqi people?

Ron Paul: The best thing we can do for the Iraqis is to give them their country back?... What we achieved in peace [vis-a-vis Vietnam] was unachievable in 20 years of French and American war? [Boos, hisses follow]

McCain: We never lost a battle in Vietnam. We lost because American public opinion made victory impossible. So, he's against torture but for stab-in-the-back mythology.

Question: Rudy Giuliani, is it true that your entire campaign is based on saying "September 11" over and over again?

Giuliani: Not at all. For example, I worked in the Reagan Justice Department to enforce an obscene double-standard viz. Cuban and Hatian immigration. [Not quite how he phrased it, and the rest of the answer wasn't bad, but that is, in fact, what he was claiming--ed.]

Question: I'm a retired special forces general. And I'm gay. Why do you think soldiers aren't professional enough to serve with gay men and women?

Hunter: You can't use Israel or Britain as an example, because Americans are conservative. Conservatives can't serve with gays because gays make them uncomfortable.

Romney [after Anderson Cooper pointed out that Romney once said he looked forward to the day when gays could serve openly]: Now is not that time. Because we're at war.

McCain: DADT works.

Question: What does the Confederate flag represent to you?

Romney [his circuits visibly frying]: I don't like John Edwards.