The Fifth Republican Presidential Debate: CNN And The Republican Candidates Try To Keep The Illusion Alive.

Wolf Blitzer, the lead moderator in Tuesday's debate framed his questions concerning Terrorism as if the American people were living in fear of a terrorist attack and of course the candidates responded with their own fear as if ISIS has already attacked the United States.  The total debate was all about foreign policy, ISIS and immigration.

Illusion was all over the debate stage and it all rang hollow.  President Obama has kept America safe despite the republican illusion and ISIS has been weakened in Iraq and Syria and continue to lose territory there.  In fact the candidates said they would do the same thing the President has been doing to fight ISIS, that is lead a coalition.  They rightly made a fool of themselves on ISIS and foreign policy.  The illusion can't change the fact that President Obama has kept America and its people safe.  And that still chaps them.

The debaters were so confused on foreign policy and terrorists they had to fall back on old reliable President Reagan.  They then made things worse by trying to compare communism and terrorists.  However, illusion about Reagan's handling of terrorists  has also been exposed and laid bare.   The planners of the terror attack on the Marine compound in Lebanon that killed 241 Marines were never brought to justice by the Reagan administration.  It was the same President Reagan who sold military arms to Iran, (a terrorists nation at the time) in the Iran-Contra affair.

The republican candidates are still running against President Obama although he will not be on the ballot and Hillary Clinton who may be.  Their names were mentioned many times during the debate.  That is good for voters who follow the facts because both the President and Hillary have accomplished more for the country than all the candidates on the debate stage combined.  

Governor Chris Christie showed the people he is not ready to be President when he said he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated a no fly zone if one was in effect.  Presidents have procedures that they go through when such an event happens and do not shoot from the hip.  Christie's position is a dangerous one.

The one thing that was not an illusion in the debate was the fact that the candidates, with the exception of Rand Paul are more than willing to make the same mistakes again in the middle east as their republican predecessors and that cost America the unnecessary loss of human life.  President Obama's foreign policies are working despite the republican and CNN's illusions and this writer does not plan to live in fear, republican style.

This commentary written by Joe Lorio