The Democratic debate was just old people yelling

By John Podhoretz

April 15, 2016 | 12:25am
To call the Democratic debate Thursday night a travesty would be an insult to serious travesties throughout history — because it was, save for an extraordinary back-and-forth on Israel, a series of hostile exchanges that were alternately pointless and stupid when they weren’t entirely disingenuous.

Also, with the screaming they were doing, these two Social Security recipients came to look like they were battling over the last open seat on the board of the Del Boca Vista Condo Association. If they had been playing canasta, they would have accused each other of cheating and spilled their glasses of tea all over the card table in the game room.

Why all the yelling? Maybe that’s the only way they could hear each other. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the volume level at which my octogenarian parents play their TV.

But seriously, folks. Bernie Sanders has won eight of the last nine Democratic contests, which gives him momentum and makes Hillary Clinton look bad. On the other hand, she’s all but got the nomination in the bag, and in the overall aggregate Democratic vote nationwide, she’s ahead of him 56 percent to 41 percent. New York polls have her ahead by about 10 points.

Still, she probably won because she’s ahead and didn’t make any big mistakes, and he said nothing that would expand his audience outward from the wildly enthusiastic leftists and kids who have kept his campaign chugging along.

Sanders said he had no specific plan to break up the banks because it wouldn’t be appropriate for the government to come up with the details for their self-destruction.

Please.

Clinton said she was for a $15 minimum wage but that she was also for a $12 minimum wage but was really for a $15 minimum wage but also supported a $12 minimum wage.

Please.

Hillary said Bernie had no plan for Wall Street. He said she gave speeches for money.

She said Sanders was in the pocket of the National Rifle Association. He said he opposed suing gun companies because he wanted to protect small gun-shop owners in rural areas.

He said he would pay for free college by imposing “a tax on Wall Street speculation,” which takes the term “voodoo economics” to a new level. She said that when she was a senator, she gave Wall Street hell.

Oh, really? In a debate in 2015, she defended the astonishing degree of support she has received from bankers by saying she did it to defeat al Qaeda: “I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked. Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan, where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.”

For 10 minutes in the middle of the debate, something amazing did happen: A true and substantive disagreement erupted between the two candidates on the subject of Israel and the Palestinians.

Sanders declared that Israel’s use of force in its 2014 war against Hamas in Gaza — a war necessitated by Hamas firing literally thousands of rockets at civilian targets in Israel — had been disproportionate. Clinton defended Israel’s use of force. And then things got heated.

Essentially, Sanders accused Clinton of being a shill for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and of showing disrespect to the Palestinians — even though Clinton famously (or notoriously) yelled at Netanyahu in a 2010 phone call after a slight to Vice President Joe Biden for which Bibi had apologized.

This goaded Clinton into the most fervent defense she has ever made of Israel’s right to defend itself, and a concomitant passionate attack on the horrendous political culture bred by Hamas in Gaza.

Most of the disagreements between these two count as the narcissism of small political differences. Not this one.

On Israel and, later, NATO, Mrs. Clinton spoke as the classic internationalist she has become over the course of her quarter- century in Washington. Sanders spoke like the 1960s radical he has always been. I know which one I prefer — but then, I’m not a 2016 Democrat.
Now please excuse me. After watching this debate, I have to go get fitted for a hearing aid.
http://nypost.com/2016/04/15/the-dem...eople-yelling/