Glynnis (9:52:27 PM): Huckabee: whether or not we should have gone, we are there now.
Rachel (9:52:36 PM): Ron Paul is gooooooood.
Glynnis (9:53:01 PM): Ron Paul and Huckabee DEBATING
Rachel (9:53:08 PM): This is exciting!
Glynnis (9:53:13 PM): Huckabee says American honor trumps all!
Rachel (9:53:24 PM): And Ron Paul says that mistakes should be corrected!
John (9:54:06 PM): Wow, they are completely talking past each other, and Huckabee is not speaking with as much gusto, but this may be the most telling exchange we have seen in this whole debate season.
(source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-neffinger-glynnis-macnicol-and-rachel-sklar/liveblog-foxnews-gop-deb_b_63235.html)
For those of you who did not get a chance to see the event live here are the excerpts from the quarrel.
(source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295886,00.html)
[begin transcript]
WALLACE: Congressman Paul... (APPLAUSE)
Congressman Paul, your position on the war is pretty simple: Get out. What about, though, trying to minimize the bloodbath that would certainly occur if we pull out in a hurry? What about protecting the thousands of Iraqis who have staked their lives in backing the U.S.? And would you leave troops in the region to take out any al Qaeda camps that are developed after we leave?
PAUL: The people who say there will be a bloodbath are the ones who said it will be a cakewalk or it will be a slam dunk, and that it will be paid for by oil. Why believe them? They've been wrong on everything they've said.
PAUL: So why not ask the people... (APPLAUSE)
... why not ask the people who advised not to go into the region and into the war? The war has not gone well one bit. Yes, I would leave. I would leave completely. Why leave the troops in the region? It was the fact that we had troops in Saudi Arabia -- was one of the three reasons given for the attack on 9/11. So why leave them in the region? They don't want our troops on the Arabian Peninsula. We have no need for our national security to have troops on the Arabian Peninsula. And going into Iraq and Afghanistan and threatening Iran is the worst thing we can do for our national security. I am less safe, the American people are less safe for this. It's the policy that is wrong. Tactical movements and shifting troops around and taking in the 30 more and reducing by five -- totally irrelevant. We need a new foreign policy that said we ought to mind our own business, bring our troops home, defend this country, defend our borders... (APPLAUSE)
WALLACE: Congressman Paul -- and I'd like you to take 30 seconds to answer this -- you're basically saying that we should take our marching orders from Al Qaida? If they want us off the Arabian Peninsula, we should leave? (LAUGHTER)
PAUL: No. (APPLAUSE)
PAUL: I'm saying we should take our marching orders from our Constitution. We should not go to war... (APPLAUSE)
PAUL: We should not go to war without a declaration. We should not go to war when it's an aggressive war. This is an aggressive invasion. We've committed the invasion of this war. And it's illegal under international law. That's where I take my marching orders, not from any enemy. (APPLAUSE) (AUDIENCE BOOING) (CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Senator Brownback, you want in on this. What do you have to say, sir?
BROWNBACK: I didn't hear your question, so I'm going to...
WALLACE: What do you have to say to what you heard?
BROWNBACK: Thank you. I think what we need to do now is look at the situation we have and now have a political surge taking place. This is Thomas Friedman's statement, but it is true.
BROWNBACK: You've got the military that has made a number of progressive steps, particularly in the west -- Al Anbar Province -- they've made progress. But we don't have a political solution on the ground that works in Iraq. Iraq is less a country than it is three groups held together by exterior forces. It's the Kurds in the north, the Sunni in the west, the Shia in the south, and a mixed city in Baghdad. And, yes, there are groups that are mixed around in that. I think we need to recognize that reality. We ought to now push for establishment of a Sunni state in the West. Still one country -- still one country, but separate states. That's a political solution that you can take advantage of what the military has done on the ground. That's what we need to do to move forward now.
GOLER: Senator, let me ask you, quickly, if you do that kind of less federation, how do you keep the Kurds in the north from fighting with Turkey, how do you keep the Shia from allying with Iran, and how do you keep the Sunnis from rebelling over having no oil resources?
BROWNBACK: How do you do it now? I mean, I think you're going to need a long-term U.S. presence in -- particularly in the Kurdish region in the north and the Sunni region in the west that you're going to have a long-term -- invited by those governments.
BROWNBACK: And you're going to need it to assure the Turks that the Kurds aren't going to pull out and to assure the Kurds that the Turks aren't going to come in. I think that's what you have to do in looking at the reality. And the next president needs to come in and know foreign policy and not learn it on the job. This is something we need to know going in. The world is flat. I ought to know that. Being from Kansas, I understand flat. (LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: Governor Huckabee, the latest national intelligence estimate, which was out recently, says that even if we continue the troop surge -- and we're going to put it up on the screen -- "Iraq's security will continue to improve modestly during the next six to 12 months, but levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance."
WALLACE: Governor, if that's the best we can hope, should we continue the surge?
HUCKABEE: We have to continue the surge, and let me explain why, Chris. When I was a little kid, if I went into a store with my mother, she had a simple rule for me: If I picked something off the shelf at the store and I broke it, I bought it. I learned I don't pick something off the shelf I can't afford to buy. Well, what we did in Iraq, we essentially broke it. It's our responsibility to do the best we can to try to fix it before we just turn away. Because something is a stake.
HUCKABEE: Senator McCain made a great point -- and let me make this clear: If there's anybody on this stage that understands the word honor, I've got to say Senator McCain understands that word...
(APPLAUSE)
... because he has given his country a sacrifice the rest of us don't even comprehend. And on this issue, when he says we can't leave until we've left with honor, I 100 percent agree with him because, Congressman, whether or not we should have gone to Iraq is a discussion the historians can have, but we're there. We bought it because we broke it. We've got a responsibility to the honor of this country and to the honor of every man and woman who has served in Iraq and ever served in our military to not leave them with anything less than the honor that they deserve.
PAUL: Can I respond...
(APPLAUSE)
HUME (?): Go ahead. You wanted to respond. He just addressed you. You go ahead and respond.
PAUL: The American people didn't go in. A few people advising this administration, a small number of people called the neoconservatives hijacked our foreign policy. They're responsible, not the American people. They're not responsible. We shouldn't punish them.
(APPLAUSE)
HUCKABEE: Congressman, we are one nation. We can't be divided. We have to be one nation, under god. That means if we make a mistake, we make it as a single country: the United States of America, not the divided states of America.
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL: No, when we make a mistake -- when we make a mistake, it is the obligation of the people, through their representatives, to correct the mistake, not to continue the mistake.
(APPLAUSE)
HUCKABEE: And that's what we do on the floor of the Senate.
PAUL: No, we've dug a hole for ourselves and we've dug a hole for our party. We're losing elections and we're going down next year if we don't change it, and it has all to do with foreign policy and we have to wake up to this fact.
HUCKABEE: Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor, and that is more important (inaudible) the Republican Party.
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL: We have lost over 5,000 Americans killed in -- we've lost over 5,000 Americans over there in Afghanistan, in Iraq and plus the civilians killed. How many more you want to lose? How long are you going to be there? How long -- what do we have to pay to save face? That's all we're doing, is saving face. It's time we came home.
(APPLAUSE)
HUME: Gentleman, thank you.
[end transcript]
After the debate, Fox News conducted a poll asking, Who do you think won tonight? It seems as though Fox has fixed the problems from the last poll conducted for the South Carolina debate in which they claimed Congressman Ron Paul supporters were spamming the polls. Those who attempted to vote more than once were sent the following reply:
Now that we know Fox News has fixed the “spamming” problem how do the final results look?
Ron Paul - 33%
Huckabee - 18%
Giuliani - 15%
McCain - 14%
Romney - 12%
Hunter - 2%
Tancredo - 2%
Brownback - 1%
