Good merciful heavens. Have the Republican presidential candidates not learned anything from this disastrous presidential rule?

At last night's debate on CNN, there was plenty of sparring among the candidates, and a surprising number of attacks on the Bush administration. But mostly, there was strong support for the war in Iraq. The problem, most of them insisted, is not our attack on Iraq. The problem is the war's execution.

And there was a dismaying amount of right-wing rhetoric.

This is one scary bunch - ready, with few exceptions, to muscle the world to get our own way. John McCain, apparently, will stay the course in Iraq, no matter what the cost in human lives. The "surge," he said, must work. "I am convinced that if it fails and we have to withdraw," he said, terrorists "will follow us home."

Only Texas Representative Ron Paul, who disagrees with the other Republicans about almost everything, said it was a mistake to attack Iraq.

On the complicated issue of immigration, the Republicans were sharply divided, some of them flat-out xenophobic, some more rational. (Only Ron Paul showed any sympathy for undocumented immigrants, noting that they're being made scapegoats in the discussion over an immigration bill.)

On other issues, far-right conservatism was in charge. While Rudy Juiliani stuck to his principles and defended abortion rights, Mitt Romney bragged about his switch from pro-choice to anti-abortion. And once again he gave his weird explanation for the change: the possibility of cloning convinced him that with Roe v. Wade, "we had gone too far."

Among the most distressing responses were to Wolf Blitzer's question about gays in the military. The don't-ask, don't-tell policy is working just fine, the Republicans agreed. Fine? A blatantly discriminatory policy works just fine? A policy that forces out qualified people, including linguists, when we desperately need them?

Worst of all was Romney's response: to change the policy, he said, would be a "social experiment."

Last night's debate makes it clear: whoever is nominated, there'll be stark differences between the Democratic and Republican candidates for president next year. The Republicans will be offering a candidate who endorses right-wing views, and that candidate's campaign will be designed to play to Americans' fears and divide us still further.