I'm amazed at what I've seen of the infamous YouTube debate.
Two facts that should be known up front. First of all, ratings-wise this debate was a dismal failure, with only 2.5 million viewers total and only around 600,000 in the 18-54 demographic. Fox or the alphabet networks would be seething over those numbers behind the scenes if they had hosted this nonsense.
Secondly, all of the videos were available to the candidates beforehand for them to peruse. Rather than a debate, this was the equivalent of tee-ball. And even at that, some of the candidates tried to queer the mix by having their supporters send in multiple versions of the same question...which is why Anderson Cooper gently chided Joe Biden, the worst offender.
With all that advance prep, you would have expected some more substantive statements, or even some slogan worthy sound bites.
Uhhhh...nope!
When you cut through the HappyTalk and verbiage, every one of the Democrat candidates
favor increased taxes and a transfer of wealth from the middle class to those the government deems worthy....which of course is mostly government itself, when you run it down.
They all call for increased funding for education as a sop to the teacher's unions..and never mind that simply throwing money at the problem without a basic reform of the way public educations works in America has actually made it worse, not better. And they all want the government to get its mitts on healthcare in a big way.
When it comes to international affairs, not one of these people has a single idea on how to win this war we're engaged in or how to defend the country.Their ideas in dealing with international affairs all revolve around `diplomacy', regardless of whether it has a remote chance of working.
The porcine Bill Richardson provides a fine example, in talking about Darfur:
"This is what I would do: It’s diplomacy. It’s getting U.N. peacekeeping troops and not African Union troops. It’s getting China to pressure Sudan. It’s getting the European Union to be part of economic sanctions in Sudan. It’s called leadership.... United Nations peacekeeping troops, and that would primarily be Muslim troops."
Someone should gently explain to him that it is the Muslim bloc,Russia and China who have blocked any meaningful action of Darfur. And that the Sudan's government has said, ad nauseum that they will not allow UN forces in their country. Does Governor Richardson plan to shoot his way in? Considering that he favors an immediate withdrawal from Iraq?
Needless to say, no one brought unimportant little matters like this up..for him, or any of the other candidates. But then, this is someone who compared the US border fence to the Berlin Wall, and yet still thinks he's qualified to lead the Free World.
Or Barack Obama when asked if he would he would be willing to meet without preconditions with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea Cuba, and Venezuela:
"I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous.
"And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We’ve been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they’re going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses."
Again, someone should clue the Senator in that diplomacy has been ongoing for months with some of these countries ( particularly Iran) without anything other than lies, dissembling and lack of progress. And perhaps someone should also explain to him that Iran and Syria not only have a vested interest in chaos in Iraq, they're actively promoting it.
And this man has the unmitigated gall to tell people he has 'better judgment' on foreignpolicy than any of the other candidates?
Now there was one issue where the candidates seem to be in a real horse race: How quickly would you retreat from Iraq?
Senators Clinton and Obama eseentially said they wanted the withdrawal to start now and be completed by March 2009 - about 8 months.
Dennis Kucinich was at least honest about it, and said that the Democrats need to put their money where their mouths were,defund the war and get our troops out immediately. I'm sure he envisions a full bore,helter-skelter retreat as soon as possible.
The aforementioned Governor Bill Richardson said the same, and that he could get all the troops out in five months, Senator Chris Dodd claimed he could get it done in seven months, while Sen. Joe Biden said it would take at least nine months to a year to move American troops and civilians out.
My, my. I have to give it to Kucinich, by a nose.
None of them is even remotely considering the casualties that would occur, both civilian and military as our Army is evacuated after being chased out of Iraq. Can you imagine 250,000 people trying to retreat through a sniper, truck bomb and IED environment from a country as big as Iraq?
Remember, this won't be like a handful of embassy personnel lifting off a rooftop in Saigon in a helicopter. We had already removed almost all of our soldiers and civilians before the Democrats negotiated that surrender. This one will be very different.
And that's not even taking into account the score settling and blood letting that would go on among the Iraqis.
And of course, the big ommission of the night - just as in all the other debates, not one of the Democrat candidates even mentioned the danger of Islamist terrorism, how they would combat it or what they would do to win the war we're engaged in.
Not one of these people is remotely qualified, either psychologically or by virtue of experience to be the next commander-in-chief. And while, true enough, thats not the whole enchilada, it's the major quality we are going to have to look for now, given this war that has been waged upon us.
What these people are essentially holding out to the American people is a return to the vacation of history we had during the Clinton years.
I would hope the American people would remember how that ended up turning out.
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