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June 29, 2007

Last Night's Democratic Debate 'More Like A Snake-oil Salesman's Convention

Topics: Political News and commentaries

Given the present direction (or lack thereof) of the Republican Party, the editors of this blog have decided to now, more than before, sit squarely in the middle of the political spectrum and be as hard on the Republicans as it's been so easy to do up until now, on the Democrats. However, given the propensity of the Democrats to be so far to the Left and to see so many fixes for our society's ills through the expenditure of dollars and a more massive government, it's hard to not find more to pick on them about. This is probably why I found John Podhoretz' view of the debate to be so closely like that of my own:

It struck me as a snake-oil salesman's convention. Every minute there was another promise to fix another problem that any sensible person at any point on the political spectrum knows perfectly well can't simply be fixed by dollars alone -- universal health care, education, the size of the prison population, AIDS, early childhood development, and on and on. I suppose there are many people in this country who genuinely believe the reason things aren't better is that government doesn't do enough or spend enough and that all you need to do is cut the defense budget to make everything equal. And I suppose saying you're for massive government action in all these areas is incredibly seductive for those people to hear. But it's not serious. In fact, it's insulting to their audiences for the candidates to pretend it is serious. It would be like Republican candidates going before pro-life audiences and saying, "When I am president there will be no abortions in this country!" The fact that this was a forum largely dedicated to issues of concern to African-Americans should be a sobering reminder of just how patronizing liberals can be toward black people.

Like Podhertz likely felt, for a while I actually thought I was watching a "get out the vote" rally before the NAACP.

Posted by Richard at June 29, 2007 9:56 AM

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