A look back at the Democrats’ Dartmouth talkathon

The New York Times has posted a transcript of the Democrats’ Dartmouth talkathon earlier this week. The sheer frivolousness of both the media participants and the Democratic candidates about the Islamofascist war against the United States continues to be a striking element of these forums. Sleepers, awake! I want to note a few stray quotes which I found to be of interest one way or another.
In the discussion of federal entitlement programs John Edwards referred to couples making up to $115,000 per year as “firefighter couples.” Where did that come from? In the same part of the discussion, Dennis Kucinich argued that the Social Security retirement age should be kept at 65 because “[p]eople’s bodies break down.” Good point! Senator Clinton recalled that President Bush’s desire to avoid “eliminating the debt” (I think she meant deficit) “was one of the excuses he gave when he voted for [sic] those horrible tax cuts in 2001.” The absence of any reference to the toll of 9/11 is striking, as well as the animus against reduction in income tax rates.
The discussion of a possible federal law on cigarette smoking elicited some striking comments. When Tim Russert asked Senator Obama whether he had quit smoking, Obama said he had — “you know, the best cure is my wife.” Despite his generally poor performance, that was certainly a good line and his best of the night. Governor Richardson followed up somewhat awkwardly. His response to the question whether there should be a federal law on smoking was: “I did it in New Mexico as a national law.” Well, okay, I know what you mean!
Again, however, Rep. Kucinich deserves special recogntion for his contribution to that part of the discussion: “Wait a minute. I’ve been breathing in a lot of secondhand smoke here tonight. (Cheers).” I’ll drink to that!
The observant James Pethokoukis of US News had his own takeaways from the talkathon. He serves them up with appropriate comments in “Forget Clintonomics — this was Mondalenomics.”
UPDATE: Bill Harshaw corrects me and defends the accuracy of Ms. Hillary’s comments here, though I’m unclear whether he thinks those proposed tax cuts were “horrible” too. Bush may not have inherited a budget deficit from President Clinton, but he inherited an economy heading into recession.
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