What I learned from tonight’s debate

You can learn a lot from watching a Democratic presidential debate, or even two-thirds of one, which was all I could tolerate. For example, I learned that Bernie Sanders honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Did you know that?

Sanders was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. I knew that. But tonight he said that he doesn’t oppose war in general, and took conscientious objector status because of his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

Doesn’t conscientious objector status depend on sincere objection to participation in any war in any form? Oh well, what’s one more draft-dodger in the White House?

As for Martin O’Malley, I learned that although he was governor of my state for eight years, I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. I also learned, as I had suspected, that O’Malley would really like a spot in the Hillary Clinton administration.

I learned that Jim Webb is good at whining about not getting enough time to speak, but not good at using the time he gets. If ever there were a vanity candidacy, Webb’s is it.

I learned that Lincoln Chafee, who describes himself as “a block of granite” on the issues, voted to repeal Glass-Steagall because (1) almost every other Senator did, (2) his father had just died, and (3) he was new to the Senate.

Finally, I learned that Hillary Clinton wants “to save capitalism from itself.” I think this line that dates back to the New Deal. It was FDR’s excuse for trying to seize control of the economy.

In Clinton’s case, however, it reminds me more of the Vietnam-era line about “burning down the village to save it.”

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