Ai-yi-yi. Yi-yi-yi-yi. Despite some tweets we saw that spoke of boredom, the Czar thought tonight’s debate was killer. Darn nearly so, too.

First question was to Newt Gingrich about his ex-wife’s ABC News interview, and Gingrich blasted the moderator and the media elites for wasting Americans’ time with personal issues of candidates, and further hollered that the news media have been protecting Barack Obama when they should be asking tough questions about his past, too. If you missed it, the Czar means it: Gingrich raised his voice in clear anger.

Okay, fine. Gingrich got his moment out of the way. And then the questions came to Rick Santorum, who must have felt invincible after the on-air admission by CNN that he won Iowa away from Mitt Romney. Anyone else see Santorum’s tirades tonight?

First, he opened up on Mitt Romney, and basically demanded to know how Romney could stand to live with himself for pushing through RomneyCare, and then having the gall to call ObamaCare a bad idea. Yeah, remember when Tim Pawlenty made a small comment about RomneyCare, and when asked on a debate to elucidate, Pawlenty refused? Tonight, Romney got a double-barrel shot from Santorum, who cited fact after fact about the disaster in Massachusetts, and how Romney continued to defend that monstrosity. Romney, for the first time, looked positively angry as he glared at Santorum.

When given a chance to respond, Romney said that Santorum had his facts wrong, and that RomneyCare was not quite as expansive or as extensive as Santorum made it sound. But then, Santorum (obviously expecting every one of those corrections) went into deeper detail as to why Romney’s defenses were even worse. Based on your comments on Twitter, the majority opinion was that Santorum punished Romney on this.

Not content there, Santorum then went after Gingrich: he maybe went really too far, practically accusing Gingrich of covering up scandals when he was Speaker of the House, and pointing out that for all of Gingrich’s nostalgia for the 1990s, Gingrich was trashed by the House Republicans for being too liberal, and for all his invocation of Reagan, Gingrich was largely ignored by the President. Gingrich seemed a little weak in his defense here because he was caught off guard, but probably did not need to say terribly much as voters likely made up their minds by this point. Which Santorum expected, because he basically called Newt Gingrich a loose cannon that would excel in getting the country into one crisis after another.

Ron Paul was considerably more coherent tonight, and only once slipped into his weirdness by suggesting that North Korea maybe didn’t exist, but even he got whapped a bit by Rick Santorum for his lackluster history opposing abortion. His best moment was when answering what he would do differently if he got a chance to start his campaign over, and confessed that he talks too fast and would like to be simpler on his messaging.

Quite lively, and all four of the candidates seemed annoyed with CNN Moderator John King, who was humiliated to a degree by each at a couple of points. The worst moment for all of them was a question on their tax returns. Gingrich timed the release of his taxes to start with the debate, and this wound up looking like a blatant promotional stunt. Romney was booed for saying he might or might not publish multiple years, but gained some applause when he refused to apologize for being successful. Ron Paul said he would never do it because he was too embarrassed by how little he earns. Nobody bought it, Paul. Santorum looked like an idiot by rolling his eyes, admitting he does his own taxes, and they were on the computer, and nobody was home…no, the Czar is not making this up. We expected him to offer to call his cousin to drive over to the house, but see, there was this mix up with the key. Ever see a 14-year-old try to explain why his English report wasn’t done? Meet Rick Santorum.

Scoring for tonight is not easy. Mitt Romney made some fabulous comments, genuinely earned a lot of applause, but seemed weaker and more vulnerable than ever. Newt Gingrich doubled down on his hellraising sermonist persona, but seemed really shocked by Rick Santorum’s attacks. Rick Santorum unquestionably had his finest performance tonight, and likely made a lot of people think, but he clearly was trying to recruit Rick Perry’s voters to his side (rumor has it that Perry’s money men have already defected to Santorum’s campaign). Also, his bizarre attack and defense of SOPA was not great. In fact, he was exactly right: SOPA is bad, but yes—we need to update IP laws to reflect Internet piracy, because simply trashing SOPA is to ignore a legitimate criminal activity. But his explanation was so awkward that we doubt anyone else understood what the hell he was talking about. And Ron Paul would be lost without his cabal of hooters and hollerers in the crowd. We expected him at several points to wander off the stage and into traffic outside, with ushers hurriedly racing after him to tug him back to the safety of the stage.

And despite the abuse of John King, CNN asked some really good questions (except, Newt Gingrich is correct, the first one) on a range of issues the candidates themselves have brought up about the others. While there wasn’t much on foreign policy, there wasn’t much on pop social issues, either. Not a single question on gay marriage or education! Instead, they were clarifying questions from earlier comments about immigration reform, taxation, manufacturing, and more. The best question from the audience was one you and the Czar have been wondering: Seriously, now, do you really think you have a chance of repealing all of ObamaCare? The Czar thinks Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich got it right; Paul of course answered some other question about the whole idea of government being wrong, but thank God someone asked it.

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.