George who?

Around 6 last night I got back to Dickens’ “Nicholas Nickleby,” listening to tapes until I fell asleep around 10.

When my cat Oliver woke me at 1 a.m., I realized I had forgotten the GOP debate, which took place a two-hour drive away at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Watched the re-airing of Hannity’s and Colmes’ post-debate coverage, then at 3 a.m., the debate itself, with Fox News’ Brit Hume moderating.

Just a few observations:

Much talk about another 9/11-type attack, torture, border security/border fence – all with a common denominator of fearmongering.

The most exciting moments came when Congressman Ron Paul of Texas dared to suggest we were attacked on 9/11 not because Islamic terroists “hate our way of life,” but because of festering hatrid of our Middle East policies over the last half century. Rudy Giuliani went ballistic - without moderator intervention. Entertaining stuff.

Viewers, asked to vote via text messaging, selected Ron Paul as the debate winner, and Sean Hannity kept muttering, “Ron Paul did not win this debate,” then went into a diatribe about the inaccuracies of text messaging.

In a post-debate interview, Hannity employed his technique of hammering Paul with repetitious questions, drowning out the congressman’s explanation of his remarks.

The name George W. Bush was never spoken.