More On Huntsman

James Fallows hosts a conversation about whether Huntsman is the only "sane" Republican candidate, or whether he is only sane in comparison with the rest of the field.  I tend to agree with Andrew Sprung, he's only sane in comparison with the rest of the field:

In addition to the little matters of endorsing the ruinous Ryan budget and tax-free deficit reduction, there's also this from Huntsman (last debate):

'We missed the Persian spring. The president failed on that front. We go into Libya, where, to my mind, we don't have any definable American interests. We've got Syria now on the horizon, where we do have American interests. It's called Israel. We're a friend and ally. They're a friend and ally. And we need to remind the world what it means to be a friend and ally of the United States.

And we have nuclearization in Iran. Centrifuges spinning. At some point, they're going to have enough in the way of fissile material out of which to make a weapon. That's a certainty.

We had a discussion earlier tonight about sanctions. Everybody commented on sanctions. Sanctions aren't going to work, I hate to break it to you. They're not going to work because the Chinese aren't going to play ball and the Russians aren't going to play ball.

And I believe Iran has already -- the mullahs have already decided they want to go nuclear.

While I respect Huntsman's service in the Obama administration, his belief in anthropogenic climate change and evolution, along with his calls for defense cuts, a pullback from Afghanistan and decreasing the size of the TBTF banks, I draw the line with his economic plans.  His calls for eliminating taxes on investment income and endorsement of the Paul Ryan budget plan are deal breakers.  Also, I doubt that we'll have any President who will decrease the security-industrial complex and move away from our unfortunate post-September 11 police state.  It is a damn shame, but right now the Republican party is completely lost in the wilderness, and they want to take the rest of the country with them.