And It's Not Going to Get Any Better

John Podhoretz, at NRO:

I watched half of last night's Democratic debate, and like Jim Geraghty, I tried hard to evaluate it without reference to my own ideological blinders. It struck me as a snake-oil salesman's convention. Every minute there was another promise to fix another problem that any sensible person at any point on the political spectrum knows perfectly well can't simply be fixed by dollars alone — universal health care, education, the size of the prison population, AIDS, early childhood development, and on and on. I suppose there are many people in this country who genuinely believe the reason things aren't better is that government doesn't do enough or spend enough and that all you need to do is cut the defense budget to make everything equal. And I suppose saying you're for massive government action in all these areas is incredibly seductive for those people to hear. But it's not serious. In fact, it's insulting to their audiences for the candidates to pretend it is serious. It would be like Republican candidates going before pro-life audiences and saying, "When I am president there will be no abortions in this country!"