Dear Dairy:

Tuned in last night to watch that new show about the fellas who are a throwback to pre-evolved human beings trying to make their way in the real world of today: the Republican Debates. It was a lot funnier than the critics give it credit for!

At the same time, it was like ‘Law & Order: RNC,’ with the first appearance of Fred Thompson to finally confirm the rumors of his candidacy. He did about as well as he’s going to do until Dick Wolf starts scripting these things for him, but his attempts at appearing Reaganesque were unfortunately evocative of the wrong era. Instead of 1980-campaign trail Reagan, he was much more the desperately confused and embarrassed-by-his-misdeeds Reagan Dan Webb had on the stand in 1990.

Basically the candidates toed the same line: make all taxes totally optional and continue making our number one export American jobs, while setting their sights on the most pernicious evil in America today: the social safety nets. They sang the virtues of Free Trade in 9-part harmony, and cited 200+ year old books like The Wealth of Nations to support their position. I’m sure glad no economists advocate handing over our wives and daughters to our foreign trade partners, or there would have been a stampede on the stage to do it.

No one's advocating that yet!
GWB