I really shouldn’t read Time magazine, and I especially shouldn’t read Mark Halperin, aka Captain Kiss-Ass, but I did, and I have to pay the price—I have to suffer as Mark rates Newt Gingrich an A- for saying, among other things, that he would use sabotage and assassinations, plus “absolute strategic pressure” (which is kind of like war except not so much) to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons; gave Rick Perry a B+ for saying, among other things, how much he loves torture; gave Romney a B+ for saying that President Obama was wrong to take troops out of Afghanistan, except that he would do the same thing too; gave Huntsman a B for knowing ten times as much as the guys who received higher grades than he did; gave Bachmann a B- for saying that China is getting ahead of us because they don’t have food stamps and that the ACLU is running the CIA; gave Rick Santorum a C+ for being Rick Santorum (i.e., a loser); gave Ron Paul a C- for being honest; and gave Herman Cain a C- for being a complete ignoramus.
Mark covers his ass a little bit by saying that he’s grading for both style and substance, not to mention political impact. But I’d say he’s grading this way just because he likes to kiss ass. It’s so much safer that way.
Afterwords
Over at Slate, Fred Kaplan,* who actually cares about the issues (how quaint!) and, even more quaint, will actually admit to believing that torture isn’t a good idea, is “appalled”, as we say in the biz.
*Fred actually cares so much that he thinks we ought to be in Afghanistan, even though he does notice, from time to time, that, after ten years, we’re basically stuck at square one and that ten years is an awfully long time to be there.
