[TheRealThing]

The Republican Presidential debate in Boulder, Colorado, hosted by CNBC is without a doubt the worst moderated debate that I have ever seen. It has been almost 100 percent gotcha questions, with the moderators debating the candidates much of the time. Despite the poor moderation, I think that several of the candidates turned in great performances.

Ted Cruz was the first to pounce on the tone and content of the moderators' questions and instead of answering a question about the debt ceiling, he spent his entire time for the question lambasting the moderators and contrasting them with the treatment of the Democrat candidates.

Marco Rubio and Chris Christie also landed body blows against the moderators. I was very impressed how the candidates pushed back and resisted the moderators' efforts to get the candidates to engage in a food fight.

IMO, the big losers tonight were Trump and Bush. Trump was doing well but he denied criticizing Mark Zuckerberg's comments on H1B visas. Later, a moderator cited Trumps own web site as the source of her information. Ouch.

Bush was his usual dull self. IMO, he did not make up any ground on the front runners. I did not think that Kasich or Rand Paul were very impressive either. I dislike Kasich more every time I watch him.

The moderators were horrible. Overall, the candidates were very good tonight.

Addendum: There were some great closing remarks. Trump, Cruz, Carson, Fiorina, and Christie really stood out. The stage was full of people who could form the nucleus of a very strong administration.

Post debate reviews for Trump from FOX were a bit strained. FOX may never forgive Trump for his push back against Megyn Kelly, who tried to nail him for some sexist remarks he made in times past in her opening question to him in the first debate.

I for one, noticed some anchors on FOX being less than flattering with their remarks about Trump from the day he announced his candidacy for President. However, after the run in between he and little Megyn in the first debate, comments coming from FOX got a lot nastier in tone and substance. It has been more than obvious they have an ax to grind, and things have not let up in any appreciable degree. In fact, this very evening Megyn Kelly was back at it again leading a four man panel made up of FOX News contributors who took turns tossing barbs and insults at Trump for not answering the visa question in the way they thought he should have.

I've been around and known, thousands of men in the workplace and leisure pursuits in my time and I would say this, I'd like to have a nickel for every time I heard a slam or slur about women. Like the Geico commercial says, "It's just what men do." In making that admission, Trump is bombastic and brash and I can see him saying something like that. The question from Megyn was loaded and pointless and frankly it was a gotcha question, and others have offered that it was more about drawing attention to her while at the same time beneath the fair and balanced news fare of which FOX is so proud. As for the visa deal, he pitchforked it and I don't blame him.

Let me just offer this in the way of defense for Trump. After listening to leading Dems for the past 7 years, with all their distortions, smoke and mirror dodges, and Republican slams and insults, for anybody to suggest that Trump's answer was news worthy because of a lack of truthfulness is laughable at an epic level.

With that off my chest, I was very pleased to see Cruz and Rubio do so well. But, I will have to say that Christie did very well too. Dems can whistle in the dark all they want, tonight the nation saw without question that the Republican field is impressive, while by comparison, the Democrat field is as passé and dried up as tonight's mental midget moderator corps.