If you’re reading this, we’re guessing you are anxious to know who we thought won last night’s debate.  That answer is simple: Bob Schieffer, who moderated the debate.  We were convinced that, based on Bob’s near ebullient post debate analysis in the first two presidential debates that he would be the epitome of liberal media bias in moderating this debate.  Bob was a pleasant surprise to us, and frankly if you were to look on his past performances in a similar role, he has been very capable of acting as an objective facilitator when the situation required it.  Our hats are off to Bob as the best of this year’s moderators.

The spotlight at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, was of course on …

In all The Conservative Reader’s previous debate reviews we have extended the courtesy of including an analysis and grade for all the candidates on stage. With now a mere 42 days until the Iowa Caucuses, the time for such courtesy has passed and the day has come to separate the candidates from the contenders.

The following is a recap of the performances of the candidates that are realistically contending to win Iowa. We made this distinction by including only those polling over 10% in the Hawkeye state—in other words Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Herman Cain. They are listed below in order of how well each did from best to worst.

1st)—Newt Gingrich (Art)

Newt again demonstrated his ability to speak with …

• Obama is still close to Clinton in the polls in Pennsylvania.
• Hillary steps up and admits she “said some things that weren’t in keeping with what I knew to be the case” about her trip to Bosnia in 1996.
• Hillary also says “I may be a lot of things but I am not dumb” instantly losing the dumb vote. Or maybe acquiring it. Hard to tell.
• Pope Benedict acknowledges sex abuse scandal “badly handled”.
• Sharpe James, former mayor of Newark, NJ, is convicted by a Federal Jury of fraud and conspiracy. Reuters waited until the 7th paragraph to mention James was a Democrat.
• Obama is wearing a flag pin again.  I’d feel better if he got a flag tattoo. ————— No I wouldn’t.
• Florida wants

I’ve got just one little point that I haven’t seen any comment as yet which I noticed while listening to a rebroadcast of last night’s debate between Clinton and Obama in Austin.

There was a question regarding having 2 languages spoken in the US (English and Spanish presumably). Here’s a transcript (courtesy of the Chicago Sun Times) of the question and the first part of Clinton’s answer (bold emphasis is mine):

RAMOS: (SPEAKING SPANISH) Right now, there are more than 30 million people in this country who speak Spanish.
(APPLAUSE)
Many of them are right here. By the year 2050, there will be 120 million Hispanics in the United States. (SPEAKING ENGLISH) Now, is there any downside, Senator Clinton, to the United States becoming, becoming

It’s been a busy day in politics…

John Edwards has apparently been paying attention to our suggestions. He has decided to drop out of the race leaving no endorsement (yet).  Any bets on who that helps?

Rudy Giuliani also has departed, providing an endorsement to John McCain. Nice.  Most people seem to agree that McCain is not as conservative as Romney, just like the Easter Bunny isn’t as real as Santa Claus (most people can at least say they’ve had a conversation with Santa, not with the Bunny).  Hucklebee is apparently the only one waiting for an official invitation to leave (Ron Paul hasn’t spent all his money yet, so we may be stuck with him longer than Nader).

Speaking of Ralph Nader, it …