Republican debate: Trump-Bush rancor eclipses tributes to Antonin Scalia

[malaise]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/13/cbs-republican-debate-trump-bush-cruz-rubio-antonin-scalia
<snip>
The rancour between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush exploded on the debate stage on Saturday, as the two traded insults over the legacy of George W Bush’s fateful decision to invade Iraq.

Trump and Bush’s fiery exchanges – which dominated a debate that began with tributes to supreme court justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier in the day – were as personal and vicious as any moment so far in the 2016 presidential election. The Republican frontrunner ferociously challenged the Bush family legacy and GOP orthodoxy on foreign policy.

At the end of one clash, Ohio governor John Kasich was left slack-jawed.

“This is just crazy,” he said.

In the spin room afterwards, J Hogan Gidley, a former Huckabee and Santorum adviser, said he had never seen anything like it: “You get a zinger now and again but nothing like this. You never see a candidate call another a flat out liar.”

On a night of Republican bloodletting that also saw Ted Cruz condemned as just that – a liar – the back and forth between Trump and Bush focused on national security and, in particular, the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It came two days before George W Bush is set to campaign at his brother’s side in South Carolina, where Republicans vote on Saturday.
-----------------------------