In addition to Senator Edwards' unfamiliarity with the law, which I mention below, some other debate tidbits caught my attention, generally for the absurdity...
- Wesley Clark dodging a question about why he didn't contradict Michael Moore's calling President Bush a deserter. Clark's response: "Well, I think Michael Moore has the right to say whatever he feels about this." I'm pretty sure everyone's aware of that, Mr. Clark. But thanks for that first amendment primer.
- John Edwards explaining that lobbyists are fine, wonderful, upstanding human beings... as long as they don't lobby, or at least as long as they don't lobby effectively.
JENNINGS: Is there anything intrinsically wrong with being a lobbyist?
EDWARDS: No. There's something wrong with the impact that Washington lobbyists are having on our system of government.
JENNINGS: Time.
EDWARDS: Because -- since you asked me, may I say one other word about that?
Because if you watch what happens there every single day, they are influencing legislation. The power of the American people to have their representatives decide only in the interests of the American people has been taken away. And it happens over and over and over.
Which is why I have laid out a very clear set of proposals: banning contributions from Washington lobbyists. I've never taken any money from Washington lobbyists, but no one should be able to take money from them...
- Remember all that liberal propaganda you were fed in high school about how the evil robber barons oppressed their workers, stuffing them all in sweatshops and unsafe factories and making them work 25 hours a day? (Until the noble Progressives intervened with their legislation and unions, of course.) Well, apparently, it's all untrue -- though not for the reasons you think. It's not that these times weren't that bad; rather (to quote John Kerry), "The workplace of America, Peter, has never been as unfair for the average American as it is today." That's right; never.
- Brit Hume asking Al Sharpton, without smirking, what to do about the chaos in Iran: "As president, how would you deal with the situation in Iran?" (Next: asking Sharpton, "As head of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory , what would you do to help advance research into fusion technology?")
It's not just that these people have no ideas -- though (again, with the exception of Kucinich) they don't. They all hate Bush, but they can't really articulate reasons, or come up with their own proposals for anything. It's just "Trust us, we could do it better than he could, because we're Democrats." (Admittedly, part of the blame/credit goes to Bush, who learned from Clinton that triangulation makes it difficult for your political opponents to catch up to you. When Bush expands federal spending on education, AIDS, agricultural supports, Medicare..., what's left to say but "We could do it better"?)
But the bigger problem is that each of them, with the exception of Joe Lieberman, has the backbone of a single-celled organism. Lieberman has staked his campaign on his support for the liberation of Iraq, and he's determined to stick with it, regardless of what his audience thinks. But the rest of them are too scared of offending any part of the party faithful to say anything that might cost them a single vote. Wesley Clark -- a general, for goodness sake -- won't even distance himself from lefty Michael Moore. He won't even say that Moore is wrong, let alone calling Moore the slime that he is. Edwards and Dean talk about being pro gun rights, but then sign on to every bit of the anti-gun agenda of the party. Clark panders panders panders on abortion. Kerry wriggles and twists to avoid saying anything about going to war in Iraq. If these people can't even stand up to those who are on their side, how can they possibly stand up to anybody else?