A quick take on last night's debate

I'll keep this brief, for a number of reasons: the cringe-worthy nature of the event, the tiresome, mind-numbing task of parsing the minutiae of the moment, the obviousness of much of what's going on. Still, a few basic things need to be said:

It's time for Carson and Kasich to drop out.

Jeb's running out of chances to prove any sort of viability.

Rubio had an impressive comeback from his unfortunate performance at the New Hampshire debate. That said, he really ought to leave the accusations of lying to the one who lobs them most effectively.

Ted was his usual forceful, principled self - both when playing offense and defense.

And Squirrel-Hair, unsurprisingly, took the occasion to once again prove himself as horrifying a possibility for the presidency as Sanders or Hillionaire. From his it-would-be-okay-for-Planned-Parenthood-to-receive-government-funding-if-it-would-stop-performing-abortions stance (as if PP is going to abandon its organizational raison d'être) to his Code Pink-worthy lie about the W administration knowing for certain Iraq had no WMDs when it invaded (a complete ignoring of the assessments of intelligence agencies around the world, as well as the pronouncements of several prominent Democrats going back to the late 1990s) to his quintessentially sloppy, generalizing-in-the-extreme closing "politicians-are-all-talk-and-no-action"" statement (a stark contrast, coming as it did after our having heard several well-articulated summations of what a dire moment this is for America), he was abysmal.

And what was with the rowdiness of the audience? Is that a South Carolina thing, or were various factions coached and exhorted beforehand?