What I think I know

Ms. Hillary seems to me to have had the upper hand with Barack Obama in the debate on CNN this evening. Obama was more than a sideshow, but Ms. Hillary dominated the proceedings. Obama’s repeated invocation of his work as a community organizer is thin gruel for the messianic campaign he is waging.
Clinton and Obama are nevertheless joined at the hip in the demagoguery and snake oil peddled by the McGovernized Democratic Party. Ms. Hillary revels in exploiting the stupidity of the Democratic base. Does anyone seriously think that “freezing interst rates for five years” (Clinton’s proposal) will not have unintended consequences like other price controls?
Obama doesn’t take issue with Ms. Hillary on any matter of principle. The journalists posing the questions share the assumptions of the Democratic candidates and the questions are therefore at the same low level as the candidates’ answers.
Most dispiriting to me is the common ground John McCain would find with Clinton and Obama — I can hear it now! — on every issue except national security. Barring events which raise national security issues in the consciousness of the voters, either Clinton or Obama will crush McCain.
The final question asked the candidates whether they would share the ticket with the other. Before Obama announced his candidacy, I thought Clinton-Obama would be the Democratic ticket. Now it’s hard for me to imagine why Obama would step down from the messianic station he occupies in the imagination of his Democratic followers in order to serve as vice president.
FOOTNOTE: In the course of the debate Ms. Hillary recycled the hardy Democratic perennial that George Bush sent the troops to war without body armor. Rich Lowry assigned my daughter the task of running down a variation of this story in 2004 when she was a summer intern for National Review. Her 2004 NRO column “Where’s the yeast?” exposes the body armor story as a myth. It is sickening to hear Hillary Clinton recycling this old lie tonight while attempting to wriggle out of an uncomfortable question.
UPDATE: Lt. Col. John Kanaley writes:

In reference to your footnote to the Democratic debate post, if it helps your point at all, we received the body armor back in 2003 prior to deployment. Personally, I arrived in Baghdad a few months after the fall of the capital; however, even then the body armor was still part of the basic issue. Keep up the good work.

The compliment properly belongs to National Review, but the point stands.
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