Here’s Bernie Sanders explaining what the number 1 foreign policy threat to the United States is:
It’s not Iran getting a nuclear weapon. It’s not Russian aggression in the Ukraine. It’s not the Middle East on fire after we retreated from Iraq. It’s not China militarizing and stealing our military secrets by hacking our computers. Forget all that. The really big threat is the over 18 years of no warming that we’ve had, which is (to them) a sure sign that we’re all going to die a fiery death.
Here’s a review of the debate from National Review.
Excerpt:
In one of the few surprises of the night, Bernie Sanders did his best to try to save her on her troubles with her personal e-mail server. He’s an old fool if he thinks Hillary will return the favor when he needs it. Martin O’Malley, who sounded tough in cable-news interviews, wimped out in the end once he saw the audience’s roaring applause to Sanders’s declaration that the issue was settled and nobody needed to hear any more about “her damn e-mails.”
Sanders may rock the arenas when they’re filled with progressive grassroots activists, but his style doesn’t transfer well to a broader audience. He’s the party guest whom you instinctively don’t want to talk to, who begins shouting immediately, who grabs your lapel and spits a bit as he jabs his finger into your chest for emphasis. He’s Senator Larry David. You want to get away from his perpetually irritated (and irritating) ranting, but he just won’t stop talking, and he won’t let you gently back away or escape the conversation. Every two-minute answer felt like ten minutes of shouting — and he had the audacity to give Hillary grief about shouting.
Beyond his giant wimp-out on Hillary’s e-mails, O’Malley was more pleasant to listen to but is ultimately going to be a non-factor in this race. When Sanders finished his call for a revolution, O’Malley turned to the camera and said with a big smile, “What we need is a green-energy revolution!” And for a moment, he waited for applause that didn’t come. The Democratic audience wasn’t in a mood for innovation. They are in a mood for populist revenge against people who have more than they do. Sanders shouts, O’Malley whispers.
Jim Webb pointed out how affirmative action disadvantages poor whites, the need to respect the rights of gun owners, the seriousness of foreign-policy threats that Democrats rarely acknowledge — like cyber threats, hacking (ahem), and China. He was the lone voice of reality saying,“With all due respect to Senator Sanders, I don’t think the revolution is going to come, and I don’t think the Congress is going to pay for all this.”
Webb has a good chance of winning the Democratic nomination in 1948. You almost have to wonder how Webb would be doing in the GOP presidential primary, but at a key moment, Webb flinched, saying he wouldn’t have a problem with extending Obamacare benefits to illegal immigrants.
So all the candidates on the stage proposed a lot of spending (e.g. – free college tuition) and paying for it by taxing the rich. As if the rich are going to stand there and take it, and not simply respond by laying off workers, outsourcing, and even moving their operations out of the country entirely. Should we really be giving free college degrees in English to people, and paying for it by taxing entrepreneurs and job creators? Can no one see the negative consequences of taxing the people who invent products, run companies and create jobs? Do people really continue to work as hard when you take more and more of their money, or do they not scale back their work or stop working entirely?
Should we really go “well beyond” what Obama did with his executive order amnesty? Should we really be covering illegal immigrants under Obamacare? All the candidates seemed to be fine with amnesty for millions of unskilled immigrants. Again, no worry about how to pay for a whole bunch of people who use more in government programs than they pay for in taxes. Where will the money come from? Will “the rich” just lie down and hand over their money and keep working like before as more and more of their money is taken from them and their families, and given to others? How did the Democrat candidates respond to the problem of illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes being released to murder ordinary citizens? Their answer: disarm the ordinary citizens. Take their guns. And release the drug criminals from the jails.
New regulations were proposed. Glass-Steagall and restrictions on energy development. Only Webb had a sensible view of energy development, including nuclear power. The rest turned a blind eye to the massive pollution caused by India and China and promised to stop the global warming with expensive wind and solar power.
And what about all the wars created by our weakness with Russia, China, Iran, Islamic State? Well, except for Webb, the candidates promised to end these wars, apparently unilaterally, and with a magic wand. Whoosh! There, all the wars are ended. Because that’s what the Democrat voters want to hear. They want simplistic solutions, and they can’t comprehend the motivations of other parties: job creators, banks, Russia, China, Iran, and so on. They just want what they want, and they have no idea what comes next as the other people in the room respond to the new rules.
Jim Webb
Webb was the only grown-up on the stage, and he is more like the old-style Democrat who actually was competent, and actually loved his country:
When asked whether only black lives matter, or whether all lives matter, Webb was the ONLY one to say that all lives matter. He was the only one was serious about foreign policy. And the only one who was serious about what all this spending would cost.
God help us all if anyone other than Webb is the nominee. I really was scared for my country listening to the other candidates pander to their clueless base.
To get another reaction to the first CNN debate, you can listen to the latest episode of the Weekly Standard podcast.
WINTERY KNIGHT 