Credit CNN with trying to shake things up in an otherwise dull, exasperating and too-long campaign season with its YouTube Democratic presidential "debate" Monday night.
The other night when I watched the Democratic presidential candidates participate in what they presumed to call a "debate," I wondered anew about the failure of one of my political coinages to catch on. The debate was sponsored by CNN and what is called YouTube, essentially an agglutination of home videos filmed for and by that preposterous mass of shut-ins who sit in their underwear day and night glued to the Internet.
While U.S. forces continue the difficult task of helping Iraqis stabilize their country, Democratic leaders continue to undermine the war effort at home. Last week, for example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid staged an all-night Iraq defeatathon in an effort to press wavering Republicans into supporting an early withdrawal of troops. When he came up eight votes short, Mr. Reid yanked the bill from the floor, virtually ensuring a delay in funding for critical items such as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles for soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and money for wounded veterans.
Senate Democrats yesterday defeated a Republican effort to authorize $3 billion for new border security and immigration enforcement. Instead, the Democrats proposed a new agriculture workers program to bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and grant legal status to illegal aliens now working in the fields.
Obama's boast
Obama's boast
Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday endorsed a provision to protect citizens from being sued for reporting potential terrorism-related activity and criticized congressional Democrats for blocking the legislation.
Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday endorsed a provision to protect citizens from being sued for reporting potential terrorism-related activity and criticized congressional Democrats for blocking the legislation.
The coming presidential election of '08 already seems old, and it's still '07. It's hard to work up an interest in the candidates, or — and this is really a sad sign of civic apathy — much antipathy toward any of them. Even the old Hillary-bashers don't seem to have their heart in it.
