I don’t like Santorum much, but I’d gladly vote for him before I would vote for Romney.  I’m glad someone is finally taking the gloves off, because Romney is not teflon. He just hasn’t been seriously challenged yet.  Full audio here, but – wow.

@6:38 – Santorum: This is the kind of outright lies and the hypocrisy that Gov. Romney is engaged in, not just with Newt Gingrich now but with anybody who stands in his way. You can get away with it, obviously, if you’ve got millions of dollars to spend and you go out there lying and people don’t hold you accountable. Well, we are. And let me assure you that everybody else in this race is going to start to do the same.

…

@9:14 – Ingraham: Is [Romney] a liar? You said [his TV ads] are filled with lies. He knows what is in the ads so is he a liar?

Santorum: You know liar means–has he perpetrated lies? Yes he has. I’m not going to judge him as a person I am going to judge what his actions are and his actions were not truthful.

I wasn’t going to bother watching the debate tonight, but now… yes, indeed.

This is priceless:

I wish we had events like this in the U.S. No media filter, and forget the typical canned politician responses; these people are talking to one another, debating, and the truth is being revealed. Stupidity and laziness can’t hide in this format – they either know their facts and their positions or they don’t. Memorized talking points can’t save them because if they spout out a canned answer it would be obvious. They do this on a regular basis – check CSPAN for the “Prime Minister’s Questions.”

And… Thatchermania! The Heritage Foundation has a great video on Thatcher, for young’uns who never heard of her and old’uns who need a refresher course:

In honor of the new edition of D&D (via Ace) I’ll avoid the biblical term of “lawless” and use the D&D alignment.  In the quest for the Presidency, would Mitt Romney’s alignment be Neutral Evil?

The man is desperate to be President. We mock President Obama’s endless campaigning.  But as Jonah Goldberg put it,

Romney, the son of a politician, has been running for office, holding office or thinking about running for office for more than two decades.

What will he do to win?  Whatever it takes, evidently:

Romney is willing to sit there as former staff members say anything and everything about his conservative competition, while pretending to be above it all. Instead of owning it, he acts like an innocent victim. That’s what Limbaugh and Levin were referencing on their shows yesterday. It’s an open secret many observers know.

Ask a close Romney supporter about it and they’ll say it’s just good politics, damaging your opponent, without hurting your own guy. Romney has ruthlessly exploited today’s campaign finance rules to lie and smear away, the same way he ruthlessly exploited certain businesses in ways that crushed people’s lives. And he danced away then, too, shielded by the notion that, it was simply a corporation. No, Mitt Romney started and led that corporation, just as he has led misleading smear campaign after campaign today. There is a definite pattern here and it includes lying, repeatedly.

So what is Neutral Evil, exactly?

Neutral Evil is called the “Malefactor” alignment. Characters of this alignment are typically selfish and have no qualms about turning on their allies-of-the-moment. They have no compunctions about harming others to get what they want, but neither will they go out of their way to cause carnage or mayhem when they see no direct benefit to it. They abide by laws for only as long as it is convenient for them. A villain of this alignment can be more dangerous than either Lawful or Chaotic Evil characters, since he is neither bound by any sort of honor or tradition nor disorganized and pointlessly violent.

While I’d say this tends to be true of all politicians, I think it’s especially true of Mitt Romney, who takes any position he needs to, carpetbombs his opponents with unfair attacks and dons the mantle of victimhood when they return the favor.  He was perfectly okay with forcing residents of Massachusetts into a system where they pay more, endure longer wait times, and receive less health care.  ”Universal coverage” (which Romneycare did not achieve anyway) does not mean unlimited health care.  These outcomes were easily predictable – just look at the Canadian and UK  healthcare systems.  And yet, he did it, and to this day defends it.  We are expected to believe, however, that he’s going to make repealing Obamacare (which was based on Romney’s health care “reform”) a priority.

I’ll vote for him if I have to – if the only other choice is Obama. But he’s not inevitable, and the ongoing coronation attempts are distasteful.  He’s just not that great a candidate.

Video on Mitt’s flip-flopping: [Read more...]

My most recent post at Hot Air’s Green Room – 600 Million Gamers Are Virtually Violating the Geneva Convention?

The International Committee of the Red Cross can’t muster up the energy to condemn Palestinian violations of the Geneva and Hague Conventions against Israel, but is considering ways to “encourage” governments to regulate first-person shooters where players commit virtual war crimes.

Here’s the thing: typically liberals want a kinder, gentler world where all the kids share their crayons and take turns and everything is fair. They often have laudable goals. But – and they know this, because their actions bear it out – human nature guarantees it’s never going to happen this side of heaven. So they work to coerce and force people to play nice.  They are perfectly willing to micromanage every single part of your life in order to achieve their goals.  Kind intentions aside, they are fascists.