tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3751905414486132541.post-12164981124345954542007-09-07T14:33:00.000-04:002007-09-07T14:44:42.592-04:00Only one column to highlight today... Like most Friday's first thing I do is turn to Peggy Noonan's column. If she's willing, whoever wins our nomination needs to hire her, pay her, and pay her well... Her (what I think is very accurate) assessment of the Republican Presidential Candidates:<br /><br />Ron Paul -- "From the libertarian Ron Paul a blunt argument against the war: We never should have gone in and we should get out. "The people who say there'll be a blood bath are the same ones who said it would be a cakewalk. . . . Why believe them?" His foreign policy: "Mind our own business, bring our troops home, defend our country, defend our borders." After Mr. Paul spoke, it seemed half the room booed, but the other applauded. When a thousand Republicans are in a room and one man of the eight on the stage takes a sharply minority viewpoint on a dramatic issue and half the room seems to cheer him, something's going on." (especially among Republican Young Professionals)<br /><br />Mike Huckabee -- "Mike Huckabee, and for this I ♥ Huckabee, shot back that history will judge whether we were right to go in, but for now, "we're there." He echoed Colin Powell: We broke it, now we own it. "Congressman, we are one nation. We can't be divided. . . . If we make a mistake, we make it as a single country, the United States of America, not the divided states of America." David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network says he doesn't know why Mr. Huckabee isn't in the top tier. I wonder too. Maybe he is and we don't know it."<br /><br />John McCain -- "John McCain seems liberated by loss. In the debate, Mr. McCain was spirited--we stay and fight in Iraq, "otherwise we face catastrophe and genocide in the region." Fox News's focus group said he won. As he retools, he should speak of Reagan in 1976, when he was washed up in South Carolina and said, "I'm taking this all the way to the convention, and I'm going even if I lose every damn primary between now and then."<br /><br />Mitt Romney -- "Mitt Romney is--well, he continues to seem like someone who's stepped from the shower and been handed a dress shirt by his manservant George. He's like a senior account executive on "Mad Men." Still the most focused and disciplined of all the Republicans, he did fine the other night. But he should get shirt-sleeved, dig deeper, get to his purpose."<br /><br />Rudy Guilliani -- "Rudy Giuliani proved it is possible to bang the gong too much on leading New York City. Enough already, we heard you, move on. Then come back to it in a few months and make it new again. For now, can he be thoughtful about foreign affairs? Not forceful, not pugnacious, not rote, but thoughtful. No one knows quite what he thinks, as opposed to feels."<br /><br />And then make sure to read at the bottom where she hints that everyone else should get out -- and she also including a <a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/">scathing critique </a> of Fred Thompson.Erie County GOPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10403361178253390149noreply@blogger.com