Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Earth, where no sunshine has penetrated for a thousand years, under mounds of discarded principles and what appears to be the skeletal remains of an elephant, is a bar. It is so low that scientists wondered whether it even existed. Other scientists wondered whether, even given its location, it was still impossible to clear. But good news, for a given value of good news that can almost be seen with the naked eye: On Wednesday night, at their final debate before the Iowa caucuses, two of the Republican presidential candidates cleared that bar.
Not Donald Trump, of course (he was having his own town hall on Fox News at the time), nor Vivek Ramaswamy, who didn’t qualify for the debate — but Nikki Haley and, to a degree, Ron DeSantis. Amid the usual slugfest (this sounds like something fun that could be ended with salt), after an unpromising start in which they kept telling us to visit their websites — Haley has a special one, DeSantisLies.com, dedicated just to pointing out DeSantis’s lies (I visited; it was odd; you might think it would say things like, “Ron DeSantis exaggerates his achievements in Florida,” but instead all the entries were along the lines of “Ron DeSantis claimed Nikki Haley once smiled at a trans kid; this is categorically false; Gov. Haley was just baring her teeth in a show of anger and dominance!”) — they did manage to criticize Trump!
It was like pulling teeth, if pulling teeth takes several attempts from moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, but it did happen! The exchange went about as follows:

Moderator: Does Trump have the character to be president?
DeSantis: I would say his biggest failing of character is that he didn’t build the wall. That is what I would be sure to fix. Also, he is not here, which makes me sad. I love to see him. If I got to be president, I would be an even better Trump than Trump.