We're only eight minutes into the debate and Romney has worked "disgraced" into his soliloquies, with respect to Gingrich, three times.
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Gingrich just turned Romney's own capital gains argument on its head, slamming Romney's head to the mat in the process. Romney had no response. He just stood there, speechless.
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Mitt Romney is a mere, teething pup of an attack dog; he doesn't do vicious well, and this latest exhibition of the GOP Kennel Club demonstrates that truism again, and brilliantly. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, is a chronically underfed mastiff who drools rabid saliva before breakfast (usually a nice Mitts Benedict with hollandaise) and then slathers his victim's blood like Prego.
Already it's nearly too ghastly to watch. These things should be rated for television by some tasteful, discriminating censor. The horror! And in primtime no less. Nonetheless, here we are, and Romney, through what seems like strangely rehearsed dispassion, is being slowly exsanguinated.
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On Cuba, Gingrich just time-warped himself into an Allen Dulles, circa 1961.
Please take my word for this: Notwithstanding Newt Gingrich, most historians actually do learn something from reading history.
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Perhaps it's only because I've been up since 3 a.m., but this debate, too, seems as though it is rapidly fading into listlessness. Of course listening to Rick Santorum invade Iran for the 18th(?) time doesn't help.
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Romney is of a genuinely robotic mind. His assaults against Obama are rhythmic and fluid (even if asinine), while his stabs at Gingrich are stunted, uncertain, and perambulatory. And it's clear this is only because he's performed the former a gazillion times, and the latter only a few.
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Well, in defending W.'s tax-cutting failure to invigorate the economy, Gingrich just validated one of Obama's inevitable arguments: things would have been worse, said Gingrich, without the tax cuts ... (or stimulus?). You'll be seeing that one on video tape.
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This debate was one of undeveloped potential. Romney scored no points -- same old Romney, really -- while Gingrich began with a dismissive sneering that held vast promise, but soon withered -- probably because he wanted to appear "presidential." But that's not what got him where he is; and a domesticated approach will get him no farther. I suspect he'll be more animated in the next debate, because I suspect he'll have to be.