Maximum Bickering: When Politicians Attack

Anderson Cooper:  "Will the candidates please take their podiums?" 

How many times do I have to deliver this lecture?  Lecterns.  They're lecterns.  A podium is a raised platform on which the lecterns and people are placed. Podiatrists. Feet.

Michelle Bachmann appears to have just walked off The Love Boat.

Cruise director

Rick Perry called Herman Cain "brother" twice. Republicans pile on Cain MSNBC. CNN's Cooper did a bang-up job baiting and wrangling the enemy combatants. Anderson moved fracas faster than an Obama stimulus package. Maybe he swallowed a few dexedrine.

8:23: I need a Valium. The rat-tat-tat attacks are triggering an anxiety attack.

"Cooper deserves tons of credit for keeping the debate lively, asking open-ended questions that invited interesting responses from the candidates and knowing when to step back and let the likes of Perry and Romney simply go at it. Job well done." Chris Cillizza Wash Post The Fix

"All that was missing in Tuesday’s Republican showdown was someone tossing a glass of chardonnay across the set." NYT's Alessandra Stanley.

Ron Paul got the message about his distracting errant eyebrows.

Las Vegas

Bloomberg Wash Post debate

Perry goes after Mitt on Mitt's illegal alien yard boys. Mitt parries the Perry pastor Mormon attack. Politico

Newt Gingrich chided Cooper at the end for "maximizing bickering" which "doesn't lead to the road to the White House."  

Winners:  Newt, Obama.

Debate post-mortem:  CNN's panel originally included light in the Louboutins Erin Burnett, (the Paris Hilton of cable news), thrown a question or two, her unremarkable answers seasoned with "ums."  Curiously, um, Burnett disappeared after the first segment, leaving seasoned political hands Donna Brazile, Ari Fleischer, David Gergen, Gloria Borger, John King, Anderson Cooper, and via satellite, identified Dana Loesch as Tea Party blogger. (Loesch writes for Andrew Brietbart's Big Journalism). Loesch billed Tea Party nemesis and front-runner Mitt Romney's debate performance "his worst ever." 

Baltimore Sun TV David Zurawik also noticed Burnett's absence: CNN pushed the boundary in using the debate to try and promote its newest host, Erin Burnett, before and after the debate. Having her on a panel with the likes of Borger, King, David Gergen, Donna Brazile and Ari Fleischer was ridiculous. Burnett is nowhere near that league of political depth, insight and accomplishment. Such status cannot be conferred on someone simply by seating them at the table. It has to be earned over a period of time as each of those folks has done. And it only got worse when Burnett disappeared from the panel right after the first commercial break just as Cooper and the panel came back and took up the matter of how the candidates handled questions about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Burnett handled the Occupy Wall Street matter in such a disastrous manner on  the premiere of her show that she is still being discussed in pejorative terms two weeks later.

"The best thing CNN could do for Burnett is keep her hidden in a dark room until she figures out the difference between anchoring a primetime general-interest news program and tossing softball questions to CNBC's motor-mouth Jim Cramer."  Variety's Brian Lowry on CNN's post-debate "amateur hour" that "looked like the worst episode of 'The Dating Game' ever."

Afterwords:  Michele Bachmann copped a second segment on Fox News Greta Tuesday night after Greta's guest Herman Cain bailed over "a scheduling conflict."

"Mr. Las Vegas" Wayne Newton, in the debate audience, was grabbed by Greta and Bachmann to fill dead air.  Newton, who'd already appeared on CNN, was drunk or high -- in my educated opinion --on Greta, draping his arm around Bachmann during the entire interview and repeatedly cooing "beautiful lady."

Danke Schoen, Wayne!