The Czar wants you to know there was a debate this evening. Interestingly, this was the longest amount of time he has spent watching MSNBC. Evidently, they lean forward all over themselves. The questions were terrible, and to the candidates’ credit, they spent a surprising amount of minutes ridiculing the moderators for the asinine topics.

Rick Santorum spent his brief time either (a) being ignored by the moderators or (b) wincing over an apparent ingrown toenail. Could he look more uncomfortable? Look, Santorum has some great ideas, but really: he just is not going to win voters over looking annoyed or in pain. And while he did well on all his two or three questions, he failed to jam the question of his Catholic beliefs at the moderators. “One in seven people are poor,” fantasized Brian Williams, “So how do you rectify your belief in limited government with your Catholic faith that requires you to help the poor?” Santorum blathered for a bit, but could have said “Well, Brian, you could look into what the cathecism says, and also note that it does not require forcing people to contribute against their will—unlike the ideas of President Obama who was so essential in producing that many poor people.” That would have got thunderous applause.

Newt Gingrich had the highlight of the entire event, as far as the Czar is concerned. When he lambasted Williams and company for stirring up phony disagreements—to divide Republicans artificially and make Obama look better—was something the Czar has long been advocating the GOP start doing on debates. More on that in a bit, but Gingrich looked justifiably outraged tonight about obvious liberal bias in the media, firing Ben Bernanke, and declaring that the emergency exists now (rather than beginning in 2012). Some things just needed to be said, and Gingrich is clearly aware he has little to lose.

Michele Bachmann performed at her weakest tonight. Her hair looked unkempt, and she seemed to wander on her answers. She did not make any errors, and in fact got a few nods from her competitors tonight, but still has not made a signficiant dent on anything outside of the economy. She tried to bring in foreign policy with a reference to Israel, and scolded Obama for his Libyan adventure, but still seems to be singing one and only one song.

Mitt Romney was not as strong tonight as he was previously, although he traded some superb barbs with Rick Perry—even though the two are fairly close on some issues and clearly have a great deal of respect for each other. He clearly will remain formidable unless Bachmann drops out of the race. He faced his biggest challenge tonight when Perry shoved him on healthcare, and it is clear that Romney still has no clear answer for voters. Curiously, many Romeny supporters have provided a litany of plausible explanations for his quasi-liberal views as Governor, but Romney is evidently not aware of these; instead, he seems to favor the strategy of stammering and deflecting.

Rick Perry was by all design and intent the star of the show. Not because he performed well (although he was quite good), but because he was asked twice as many questions, it seemed, than the others were. He did well on all fronts, and was clearly unafraid of the other seven: he delivered some serious body blows to Romney, Paul, and Huntsman. The Czar would, however, like him to do something about his 1985 hairstyle.

Ron Paul was there. All right, to be fair, he really listened to his focus groups and de-emphasized his 1812 Overture to American politics. And he did a superb job of chiding the moderators at the very end of the debate for spending too much time on questions that make Republicans look like assholes. But while the Czar agrees with his views on airline security (privatize), he disagrees with Paul’s assertions that the pharmaceutical industry can self-regulate if lobbyists are put in charge of their own testing. Yikes. The Czar wants readers to consider that Dr. Paul was cut off before he explained himself fully; it seemed as if he was going to explain in some detail how that could work, but unfortunately, his time was up and that weirdness remained.

Herman Cain is not going to make his 9-9-9 plan work, as it would wipe out revenues too quickly even though it sounds attractive on the surface. Also, some of his other ideas are a little shaky when moved from theory to application. However, is there any doubt that this man would make an astonishing Secretary of the Treasury or of Commerce?

Jon Huntsman wants you to know that Utah is the greatest state ever, and that many of the exciting things you heard about Texas were actually about Utah. And that many of the things Romney did for the Olympics were actually him. And that Reagan was good, but Huntsman did most of those awesome things. He seemed a little more assertive tonight, but you cannot help but notice three things: (a) he wore a crooked name tag that said John Hutzman written in Sharpie, (b) he was standing behind a podium made out of a couple paper ream boxes, and (c) his microphone was actually a Sharpie jammed upright into the uppermost box.

Okay. About the questions. Many times, the Czar has admonished the GOP for letting the liberal media heads write the questions. How many questions tonight were on health, education, and welfare? How many on immigration and amnesty? How many were on things the government can do to stimulate employment?

The Czar has advocated that candidates start telling the moderators that the people also care about other things. And in no uncertain terms: dammit, who cares about Rick Perry and Gardasil anymore? Or how we can address the social needs of illegal aliens with established lives in this country? (Nod to Huntsman here, who said we treat like any other criminal who has an established life.) Where were the questions about Iran? Or about Israel and Turkey? What are we going to do about the spread of anti-democratic revolutions in the Arab world? How can we balance military expenditures with bona fide national defense? What significant reforms do we need to make as a country to restructure our government so that it operates?

And indeed, it started to happen. Gingrich started with an point-blank attack about MSNBC asking false-choice questions that exaggerated non-existent divisions within the GOP, and hammered them for their fawning over Obama. Santorum asked them the point of hammering Perry on Gardasil when the real question was what this had to do with individual liberties. Romney also defended Perry, stating that all governors reserve the right to change their minds about how legislation is enacted in their state. Huntsman got into it as well, wondering why there were so many questions on jobs still unasked. And Paul closed the show, demanding the media to stop asking questions that are rigged to make conservatives look like heartless bastards.

The Czar was surprised and delighted this finally happened. But what surprised him equally as much was the stunned silence and embarassed hemming and hawing that followed. With no denial or defense from MSNBC, the candidates discovered that they got away with it! And you can bet the next debate will be even more challenging to the media. All of the candidates are going to want to pull a Gingrich.

And it is high time they did.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.