The Tea Party Republican debate turned into a brawl pretty fast on Monday night. Well aware of the momentum that Gov. Rick Perry has as the most media-analyzed Republican of the moment, candidates including Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann went after him on issues ranging from Social Security to the HPV vaccine.
Airing on CNN, the debate displayed more fierce competition than its time-period competitor, the season finale of Bachelor Pad on ABC and the Miss Universe pageant on NBC. That comparison is apt: These GOP contestants, so fiercely fixed on appealing to the Tea Party members in the audience who asked them questions, behaved like well-groomed models striving for just the right words, just the right glances and smiles, that would win over their viewers.
Perry pledged to “make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can.” He was heckled by Mitt Romney about his characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” Romney adding that this “scares” the American people. Jon Huntsman went pop-culture on the panel by asserting that “Gov. Romney called [Social Security] a fraud in his book No Apology — I don’t know if that was written by Kurt Cobain or not — and then you’ve got Gov. Perry calling it a Ponzi scheme… we’re frightening the American people.” Americans including, one presumes, Courtney Love, if she happened to be watching Huntsman misquote the song title “All Apologies.”
Newt Gingrich scored a crowd-pleaser with a verbal bank-shot that managed to ding three targets: “I’m not particularly worried about Gov. Perry or Gov. Perry scaring the American people,” Gingrich said, “when President Obama scares them every day.” Oh, psych! Oh, was there a point he was making there? Oh, right: The President’s new jobs bill is terrible, don’tcha know…
The other subject that set the TV aflame was the HPV vaccine, administered to many school-children to prevent cervical cancer; HPV is a sexually transmitted disease. In Texas, Perry had been in favor of requiring the vaccine to be administered to girls in the sixth grade and up. He is certainly not the only governor to support this, but his opponents this night lit into him as though he was in favor of shooting up puppies with heroin.
Saying “cervical cancer is a terrible way to die,” Perry said he’d erred on the side of trying to prevent such deaths. Bachmann interpreted this as Perry doing a flip-flop, and said, “Little girls don’t get a mulligan; they don’t get a do-over.” While Rick Santorum said the program Perry once favored was “bad policy,” Bachmann went further, digging deeper into melodramatic, tangled syntax, asserting that she was “offended for all the little girls … who didn’t have a choice.” She said the vaccine “violates liberty… [with] 12 year-olds forced to have an injection into their body [sic].”
Even though it was moderated by Wolf “My Voice Is Making You Sleepy, Sleepy” Blitzer, the Tea Party debate made for some of the liveliest TV in this political season. And as I write, every media outlet with a working knowledge of Google is undoubtedly going haywire fact-checking all the dramatic economic, medical, and musical references that were made this night.
Twitter: @kentucker
The name of the song is All Apologies. But hey, when was the last time a Republican relied on facts?
who else thinks the Mom was the killer on “The Killing” on AMC – she resented her daughter for taking away her dreams and wasting her life as a priced call girl
Just like all of the Tea Party candidates at this debate!
I don’t know… The very last thing anybody should be worried about right now is genital warts. Call me crazy if you want but maybe, just maybe, the economy should be a greater priority? Maybe the wars we have going? Maybe the Middle East falling apart? Yet we are focused on an issue that is solved with rubbers, common sense, and laser to cure warts. Sheish.
Unless you have cervical cancer, and then hey, it’s pretty important. It is possible to be concerned about more than one thing at a time.
Use protection, or suffer the consequence.
This STD issue has been hammered into everyone’s heads since the 80s. Get your priorities straight ppl. Get drunk, get stupid, get warts.
Warts aren’t cancer. If a vaccine can prevent a type of cancer, vaccinate away. That whole part of the debate was just plain stupid from the get-go. And then, of course, there was the rest of the debate…
whats with all you morons going on about warts? You must be men because that is app HPV can give you. Well guess what, it can kill a woman so get educated or shut up. I had cervical cancer at 22. Back then nobody knew what HPV was. There were no tests for it. I got my daughter vaccinated not because i am afraid she will get warts (how stupid are you people who keep saying that), I did it so she will never have to deal with being infertile at 22 or worse.
Seriously, stop trivializing it because you are not directly affected you losers. You all must be tea party supporters to be THAT incredibly dense.
Condoms don’t protect from HPV. And they can be transmitted orally without sexual contact. And you can carry it without knowing it. And cervical cancer kills. And men aren’t affected nearly as much as women by this, which is why the GOP doesn’t really care about it.
I am a republican and enjoyed this debate. But the Kurt Cobain thing was SO LAME. Stop trying to be cool.BTW,I wanna share a good news to you.My best friend ,she just has announced her wedding with a millionaire man who is a businessman!they met via Millionaireloving.C óM ..it is the largest and best club for rich people and their admirers to chat online. …You do not have to be rich or famous. ,but you can meet one , It’s worthy a try,Maybe you wanna check it out or tell your friends!
HPV is a virus that causes warts. Out of the many different strains of HPV, only a couple of them cause cancer. Are you people really too stupid to use wikipedia or whatever? The warts are the only thing that doctors look for to make positive diagnosis. There is no blood test. Use condoms, protect yourselves.. There are lots of more deadly STDs than HPV. Half of everyone has them already. Get over it. Talk about something important.
@traviss Men don’t get cancer from HPV, they get warts on their junk and are carriers to give it to other people. Put a rubber on your manly parts for heavens sakes, and use some protection. There is much much worse than HPV out there to worry about.
Oh and don’t have sex with cross-dressing bisexual men from SFO. That might be a good idea too.
Men can get throat cancer from HPV if they have o r a l s e x with a woman with the virus. Lesbians need to be careful too.
Facts? I don’t like it!
How is that summer of recovery doing? Like it?
If the roof had caved in this country would be a much better place.
Whenever someone gives me a hard time I just bring up genital warts, and magically nothing else matters anymore. Try it sometime.
Are you saying Obama’s building a roof over THE ENTIRE COUNTRY? I don’t like it!
The roof to nowhere, and the cootie monster apocalypse.
You call that ganging up? They barely touched him. So much more could have been charged.
A Republican is worried about girls and women having a say over their own body? haha. That’s rich. I guess needles is where she draws the line?
No, it’s about parental consent. Perry was trying to pass a mandate, whether he believes it or not.
Women do have a say what they do to their bodies. They just shouldn’t have a right to kill the unborn who have a right to life. Right to life outweighs right to control your body.
They shouldn’t have the right to kill the unborn baby UNLESS the mother is a terrorist and there’s a baby terrorist in her stomach, (the mothers stomach not the babies stomach). I don’t like it!
Did you notice how Michele Bachmann managed to doge the question about the guy with no insurance who was sick for 6 months? She avoided the question by going on one of her many anti-Obama rants.
That woman rarely answers a question directly. And she’s also incapable of telling the truth. How can you call yourself a Christian when everything you say is fabricated? I don’t think Jesus would be very happy with the negative, mean-sirited way she handles her self.
she NEVER answers a question. Even if someone tells her she is not, she will start to talk about something else. Then seems to get upset you are asking her a question.
I’d like to Bachmann Turner her overdrive if you know what I mean?
I don’t like it!
Uh…well said!
I am a republican and enjoyed this debate. But the Kurt Cobain thing was SO LAME. Stop trying to be cool.
You’re a republican, how would you know anything about being cool.
By implication you think Democrats are cool? Haha. Haha. Haha. Seriously. That took three.
@Ruby: If you are truly cool, you wouldn’t limit or label yourself to any political party. Cool people don’t get cool by letting a political party define who they are.
Jon, you’re an a-hole.
Are you implying that all Republicans live in the South where it’s warmer? I don’t like it!
Truly cool people don’t talk, they do. Yes, I know I just took myself out of the “cool” category – oh well!
Truly cool people don’t read EW.
Cool people don’t talk? What about mimes? I don’t like it!
To root and cheer for this lot is totally disgusting.
And your alternative is another four years of nothing and nowhere.
Nothing and nowhere beats destruction and having the nation run by neo-confederates who are working hard to destroy it, yelling “Jesus” while opposing everything he said in the Gospels, and people who claim deficits don’t matter when THEY are in office but do when they are not. In the 1950s, the US had a top tax rate of 91%, in the 1960s and 1970s it was 70% under Ronald Reagan it was 50%, under Clinton 39%, today it’s 34% on income and 15% on the income of certain very rich people and on capital gains, but they want you to think taxes are what’s hurting the economy. Can I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge while we’re at it?
Redistributing wealth never solved governmental spending issues. Blaming the last person who got fired at your work for everything wrong today won’t get anyone any success in their career either. You need to provide results for your work, otherwise you need to step aside for someone else to do the job and get it done. The only person yelling Jesus at the top of their lungs is crazy atheists who don’t have a -real- argument like yourself.
Yes, the biggest problem facing the US and the World at the moment is genital warts. Who cares if a laser can take them off in a split second and are completely curable. Let’s worry about them enough to make this a presidential issue, shall we? facepalm
Those genital warts turn into cancer and can be 100% prevented. Why is the GOP so against women’s health issues?
You, and countless of other worry-warts (pardon the pun) need mental help. Soon!
Tom, you don’t have a cervix. And saying all the “worry-warts” need mental help is pretty darn worrisome.
I don’t think children should have to get an injection that could save their lives. It’s up to their parents, certainly. But, if you want to expose kids to a potentially deadly virus, why are we the ones who need mental help?
I don’t have unprotected sex like a complete retarded moron either.
Lasers? Is Obama going to use the Star Wars program against U.S. citizens? I don’t like it!
Warts are sooooo effing important.. screw the wars we have going on, and the economy.
Michele Bachmann refering to the morning-after pill, a pill which only works if works if you’re not medically pregnant yet, as the “abortion pill” was also a fun piece of mis-information that made the Tea Party audience gasp audibly with manufactured horror.
Is Bachmann such an idiot she doesn’t know kids are required to have a whole list of basic vaccines to go to school?
yes, kids are vacinnated for COMMUNICABLE diseases that are easily transmitted. HPV? Unless they are having sex in the hallways…not so easy to catch…
Use protection. Bag your junk.
The audience actually cheered the idea of letting someone without health insurance die. What a pack of animals.
That was sick wasn’t it…..last debate they cheered the death penalty. For a pro-life group they sure care less about life after someone is born.
No kidding. After hearing that, I just sat at my computer angrily for a couple minutes and twitter-searched “Let him die” several times. People had plenty to say.
Someone pointed out that the reaction was made even more atrocious the day after the 10 year anniversary of 9/11.
Well, they want you to be born, only to die from lack of health insurance later. Don’t you see the logic? ;o)
Yes, That was sick. What kind of freaks were in the audience….oh yes…nevermind. I have seen them in action on TV and at “rallys”. We should not be suprised. Save the children but let the old die.
That debate was downright disturbing. What is worse, the hate-filled, “go die” attitude of the audience, or our potential presidential candidates catering to them for their votes? It made me sick to watch. The GOP needs to toss the whole group and come up with all new candidates. These are pathetic.
It still baffles me as to why the republican party is trying its best (and often succeeding) at being a Party of Buffoons. I’ll readily admit that the democrats often leave a lot to be desired, but there’s really no other choice when the only alternative is a party that bends over backwards to be anti-progress, anti-education, anti-compassionate, and frankly, anti-American.
They keep winning elections, that’s why. They serve the foreign corporate interests that own and run Fox News and most of the other right-wing media outlets. I know Murdoch got US citizenship to take over the country, but most of the Murdoch family are still foreigners, and the second biggest shareholder is the Saudi Royal Family.
When’s the Season Finale of GOP Shore? Someone tell Newt to stop kissing Perry’s a**
Gotta Love Those Warts. How is that summer of recovery doing for everyone today???? ha
That debate was full of Those Warts. Made me wanna take a giant syringe full of Gardasil and inject all of those walking viruses out of there.