Not content with rewording “God Bless America” and grilling second-tier candidates with questions about what they’d do to overturn Roe v. Wade and fight “the homosexual agenda,” the organizers of the Values Voter Presidential Debate made sure that everyone was aware that the four leading Republican candidates had snubbed the debate, leaving empty podiums on the stage and even reserving time during the program to allow panelists and special guests to direct questions at the candidates who declined to participate - even though they weren’t there.
And it is probably a good thing they skipped the event, since it is unlikely that Fred Thompson would have enjoyed being questioned by Mat Staver when he compared same-sex marriage to slavery, or that Mitt Romney would have liked being called a hypocrite by Peter LaBarbera, or that John McCain would have appreciated Janet Folger’s condescending tone, or that Rudy Giuliani would have been comfortable about being questioned by an “abortion survivor” demanding to know whether he “honestly believed that an abortionist had a right to kill me.”
