Charles Pierce: GOP Candidates Are ‘a Bunch of Unruly, Nasty Children‘

HAYES:  “And part of the issue here, Charlie, is that the whole thing gets painted with this broad brush of bias which, frankly, I find somewhat preposterous, particularly in this context, but part of it, Charlie, it also strikes me as there are too many people on stage to manage a traditional debate, so everyone’s frustrated at the end of these things. They were frustrated at the first two also. Their candidates are not getting enough time, they’re not making statements, there’s all these questions, but, you know, you’ve got ten people. What are you supposed to do?”

PIERCE: “Well, first of all, if they are going to rejigger the process, I would suggest to Ben Carson and the people he’s meeting with that they have the next one in a sandbox because God, what a bunch of unruly, nasty children we had, but basically, Chris, I think it’s really easy to be a Republican presidential candidate. The answer to every question is liberal media. Are you — do you associate with snake oil salesmen? Liberal media. What about the budget deal? Liberal media. What about the fact you that don’t do your day job? Liberal media. That’s simple. That’s great and plus, once you lay truth aside and don’t consider a factor in what you say, it becomes an even simpler job.”

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HAYES: “Charlie, Ezra Klein made this point I thought was interesting, basically said people are angry but partly they’re angry because the policies of the Republican Party have gotten so detached from reality — ‘the problem for Republicans is that substantive questions about their policy proposals end up sounding like hostile attacks’ and you know, I think there’s something to that particularly when you’re talking about tax math, right?”

PIERCE: “Well, I mean, Ben Carson’s tax plan is apparently written in clouds of cotton candy supported by bailing wire. Marco Rubio, right at the end, lets slip that he wants to have no taxes at all on investment income. You know, out in Malibu, Mitt Romney felt a warm breeze from the mountains and didn’t know why. Carly Fiorina essentially said there’s no constitutional basis either for the minimum wage or for Social Security. Yeah. I mean, those are not gotcha questions. When you come to Ben Carson and say, you know, how is your 10 percent tithing attitude toward taxation going tone able us to have a federal government, if his answer to that is you’re wrong and the math will add up and liberal media, then he hasn’t answered that question.”