A mostly pit-bull line-up of GOP candidates mixed it up tonight in the final debate before the Iowa caucuses. Their performance could well decide their success or failure in the key state. Rivals and moderators put barely-front-runner Newt Gingrich in the hot seat, and his response was to be more rambunctious than ever. Some highlights:
- The biggest applause of the night follows Gingrich's threat to strip federal judges of their power if he becomes president because the courts are "grotesquely" dictatorial. The judiciary is "far too powerful and arrogant in their misreading of the American people," he says. Michele Bachmann agrees, but a slightly stunned Ron Paul responds that a president stripping power from judges presents a "real problem" in the separation of powers between the executive branch and the judiciary.