VIDEO: The GOP debate in two minutes

Maybe you didn't watch the whole thing. Maybe you were really into that NCIS episode where Ducky tries to find his long-lost brother and Bishop finally gives her no-good cheating husband the heave-ho. (Unless she changes her mind in a future episode.) Anyone already watching the one who would have changed the channel to the other needs to be forcibly admitted to a mental institution. For people like me, online streaming and headphones that will prevent the bothering of your wife's ears were a true blessing, but if you had better things to do last night, this should go a long way toward getting you caught up in a mere two minutes:

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I suppose it's always this way, but most people's after-the-fact analysis (gotta love the "grades" people post in their Facebook feeds) seems to mainly affirm whoever they already liked. I can't for the life of me understand who anyone thinks Jeb Bush had a better night than Ted Cruz, but some people will at least assert that regardless of whether they really think it's true. I thought Cruz won the night, largely for the same reasons he usually excels in these settings. First, he is very effective at challenging the premises behind questions from liberal journalists, rather than groveling and trying to satisfy them. Second, he is very good at getting into the details of the policies being discuss and still managing to stay within his time limit. Rubio was on the defensive a lot, and there's a smarminess about him that's starting to bother me but I thought he held his own in most of the exchanges. I just get the sense, especially in back-and-forth between Rubio and Cruz, that Rubio is more interested in manipulating facts to back opponents into a corner than he is in an honest discussion of policy. I know this is not a popular point of view at the moment, but I thought Christie was effective making the point that senators sit around debating the esoteric nuances of bills and don't really know what it means to have to make an executive decision. The Republican primary electorate this time around doesn't seem to much value executive experience, but I've thought all along that issue is relevant and I still think that. As for the whole shouting match between Trump and Bush, you can call Trump a bully all you want but Bush seems to have little purpose up there anymore other than to scold Trump for being unserious or whatever. I think Jeb's establishment fans are politely clapping their hands every time he does this, but anyone looking for real strength or leadership out of Jeb just sees him looking annoyed and peevish that this icky guy is soaring in the polls and he's not. And I didn't hear much of a case for Jeb out of Jeb, just the constant chastising of Trump and, I guess, anyone so insufficiently serious that they wouldn't back the Proper and Appropriate Former Florida Governor With the Famous Political Name Instead of This Chaos Guy. How much will all this probably affect the race for the nomination? Probably about as much as most debates. Not at all. So why were you watching? Because it was on TV, I guess.

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