The Saturday night Republican horror show: "it was a mess"

Last night, the Republicans had another debate, this one in Greenville, South Carolina. The Young Turks summarize in CBS Republican Debate: The Young Turks Summary 02/13/2016

Cynthia Roldan reports in GOP debate in Greenville gets heated Charleston Post and Courier 02/14/2016:

While discussing America’s war policies, Trump lashed out at former President George W. Bush’s decision to launch the Iraq War, accusing the former administration of lying by claiming that there were weapons of mass destruction when there were none.

Trump even jabbed at claims the earlier Bush White House kept America secure.

“The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe?” Trump said, going on to say “I lost hundreds of friends” in the 9/11 terror attack.

Trump even doubled down on his attack on Jeb Bush, the current GOP candidate, criticizing him for initially struggling to disagree publicly with his brother’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

“It took him five days before his people told him what to say, and he ultimately said it was a mistake,” Trump said of Bush.

Bush, who was openly frustrated with Trump’s attacks, said he didn’t mind being singled out but that he was “sick and tired of him going after my family.”

“While Donald Trump was building a reality TV show, my brother was building a security apparatus to keep us safe,” Jeb Bush said. “And I’m proud of what he did.”

A President Trump's foreign policy would be at least as misguided as Shrub Bush's and Dick Cheney's. It would be quite a feat to have one more disastrous.

But I am glad Trump tossed that point out there. The Democrats should have been doing it from September of 2001. The Young Turks refer to that moment in Trump's performance, CBS News Republican Debate: The Biggest Winner Was... 02/13/2016:

D.D. Guttenplan reviews the debate in Trump Says This Was His Best Debate Yet. He Might Be Right. The Nation 02/14/2016:

The Republican Party’s continuing failure to come up with a consensus alternative to the Greatest Shill on Earth hasn’t just made Trump the prohibitive favorite in the South Carolina primary on February 20. It has also given a television audience who wouldn’t believe Bernie Sanders if he told them the earth rotates around the sun repeated exposure to the notion that the Republican party is the tool of “lobbyists and special interests,” Jeb Bush is their creature, George W. Bush “lied us into war in Iraq,” Ted Cruz is an even bigger liar, while corporate America has stashed “$2.5 trillion offshore.” And by the way, Planned Parenthood does “wonderful things having to do with women’s health.”

Meanwhile, Rubio also announced that “Ted Cruz has been telling lies,” Cruz called Rubio a lackey of “the donor class,” John Kasich pointed out Jeb Bush’s ruinous economic legacy in Florida, while Bush denied he ever threatened to “moon” anyone.

Trump is a rightwing demagogue. The occasional shot he takes that are things progressives might agree with on their face are not things he takes particularly serious. His fans are turned on by his White Power appeals: cheering cops who murder unarmed black people for no good reason, demanding the deportation of 12 million Latinos, promising to bully Mexico and bomb the crap out of this or that Arab country.