Tom Maguire:
If the Republican Party is prepared to nominate a 9/11 TrutherTrump nailed this down in the debate Saturday night.
Time will tell. Scientists have confirmed the existence of gravity waves but political scientists have yet to confirm that Trump is subject to the laws of political gravity.
ROLL THE TAPE: From the transcript, edited:
DICKERSON: … On Monday, George W. Bush will campaign in South Carolina for his brother. As you’ve said tonight, and you’ve often said, the Iraq war and your opposition to it was a sign of your good judgment.
In 2008, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, talking about President George W. Bush’s conduct of the war, you said you were surprised that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t try to impeach him.
You said, quote: “Which, personally, I think would have been a wonderful thing.” When you were asked what you meant by that and you said: “For the war, for the war, he lied, he got us into the war with lies.” Do you still believe President Bush should have been impeached?
…
TRUMP: So let me just tell you, I get along with everybody, which is my obligation to my company, to myself, et cetera.
Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. All right? Now, you can take it any way you want, and it took — it took Jeb Bush, if you remember at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced for president, it took him five days.
He went back, it was a mistake, it wasn’t a mistake. It took him five days before his people told him what to say, and he ultimately said, “It was a mistake.” The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don’t even have it. Iran has taken over Iraq, with the second-largest oil reserves in the world.
Obviously, it was a mistake.
DICKERSON: So…
TRUMP: George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.
DICKERSON: But so I’m going to — so you still think he should be impeached?
BUSH: I think it’s my turn, isn’t it? [Lucky for Bush, Trump kept going. -TM]
TRUMP: You do whatever you want. You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.
(BOOING)
DICKERSON: All right. O.K. All right.
OK, a full Truther would declare that Bush plotted the destruction of the Twin Towers, but still, this is DKos/Al Gore territory, not what people expected at a Republican debate. The Ace thinks this has to hurt Trump, but plenty of other thrice bitten, fourth time shy commentators aren’t sure what if anything can hurt Trump.
As another example, did we expect to see a Republican defending Planned Parenthood? Back to Trump, this time scuffling with Ted Cruz: