The World According to GOP Presidential Candidates

​In case you didn't notice -- between coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, Anthony Weiner, and Anderson Cooper probably wearing a skin-tight shirt -- CNN held a debate between hopeful Republican presidential candidates last night.

You can guess what happened when Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, and Hermain Cain shared a stage with CNN's John King running the show -- it turned into a circus.

What the wacky "debate" style did, however, was show the country some viewpoints about themselves and the state of the nation, which we'll showcase as "the world according to GOP presidential candidates":

• President Obama has tried to stop oil drilling in the United States

Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Obama has put the "stop sign" on domestic oil drilling. When George W. Bush left office, U.S. crude oil production was just under 5 million barrels per day. In 2010, it was at 5.5 million barrels per day, the highest level since 2004.

• The existence of a "back sack"
  

Tim Pawlenty apparently knows a thing or two about "back sacks." Too bad nobody else does, and we really don't know the point of his "back sack" reference. "We need to make the costs and burdens of manufacturing in this country lower. We're asking them to climb the mountain with a big back sack full of rocks on their back, and we have to take the rocks out," Pawlenty said. It still doesn't make sense, but we're pretty sure we don't want T-Paw touching our back sacks.

• The U.S. is going to let the Taliban take control of Afghanistan

Mitt Romney knew the score of the hockey game last night, but he wasn't quite sure about which side the U.S. is on in Afghanistan. He said we should get our troops out of Afghanistan when military leadership decides it's time to "hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban military." He then corrected himself by saying he meant the Afghanistan military.

• Elvis Presley's Christmas album is comparable to Johnny Cash

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann was asked whether she preferred Elvis or Johnny Cash. She answered by saying "both," which may say something about her decisiveness. Bachmann then went to clarify her answer by saying she had Elvis' Christmas album on her iPod -- which doesn't make us feel better for placing Elvis and Cash on the same level.

• BlackBerry phones are better than the iPhone

We understand Texas Rep. Ron Paul is getting on in age and probably not keeping up with technology. Faced with the question of "BlackBerry or iPhone," Paul chose the BlackBerry. There are still BlackBerry phones that have trackballs, and they still sell flip phones. Hop on the iPhone and Angry Birds train, Dr. Paul.

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