The Family Research Council offers a stunning summary:
Pin the Tale on the Donkey
There were plenty of takeaways from last night's Democratic presidential debate, but the biggest may be how much conservatives have to be grateful for. On a Las Vegas stage, Americans heard from five liberals bent on furthering the agenda that's put our nation on the financial, moral, and international brink. Together, they showed no remorse for the misguided policies of the Obama administration -- and instead seemed to apologize that the President's radicalism didn't go far enough.
It was an eye-opening experience for most people, who heard, as National Review put it, "college educations should be free for everyone; all lives don't matter, black lives do; Obama is simultaneously an enormously successful president in managing the economy, the middle class is collapsing... and that ObamaCare benefits should be extended to illegal immigrants." In a world displaced and upended by Muslim extremists, the NRA was mentioned 14 times more than radical Islam (which wasn't mentioned at all).
Out of step and woefully unconcerned about anything but the next big government program, voters heard from a man who could be President that the greatest national security threat facing America was climate change! Maybe so, if he was talking about the climate of hostility toward the West and religion -- but certainly not the weather. Still, Bernie Sanders insisted, "The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is a major crisis."
In a drastic departure from the GOP debates, social issues were almost nonexistent -- with one major exception: Hillary Clinton's stunning defense of Planned Parenthood. To CNN's Anderson Cooper, who feigned surprise that the former Secretary of State would propose another government program, Hillary fired back, "Well, look, you know, when people say that -- it's always the Republicans or their sympathizers who say, 'You can't have paid leave, you can't provide health care.' They don't mind having big government to interfere with a woman's right to choose and to try to take down Planned Parenthood. They're fine with big government when it comes to that. I'm sick of it."
In her allergy to the facts, Clinton failed to mention that redirecting money from scandal-ridden Planned Parenthood to community health centers would actually saveAmerica close to $235 million. That's hardly the "big government" most Americans know. But the fact that the only woman on stage would defend an organization exploiting and endangering her own gender said plenty to viewers. Meanwhile, foreign policy, one of the current administration's greatest weaknesses, got relatively little attention. Instead, Sen. Jim Webb, Gov. Martin O'Malley, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, Secretary Hillary Clinton, and Sen. Bernie Sanders spent most of the night trying to spend something else: taxpayer dollars.
With a particular focus on income inequality and paid leave, even Sen. Webb couldn't help but point out, "With all due respect to Senator Sanders, I don't think the revolution is going to come, and I don't think the Congress is going to pay for all this." No wonder the Democratic field sounded like a bunch of (to use Jim Geraghty's words) "hard-Left, pie-in-the-sky, free-ice-cream-for-everyone, Socialist pander bears." As for the shadow of scandal following Hillary Clinton, she did her best to step out of it. At one point, she tried to duck the issue, insisting that she would answer Congress's questions when the time came. "But tonight, I want to talk not about my e-mails, but about what the American people want from the next President of the United States."
What Americans want is someone they can trust. And based on her conduct, and the conduct of so many Obama officials, that person is becoming harder and harder to find. After seven years of Barack Obama, this country wants a President who won't break the rules to advance an agenda or bypass the law to institute flawed policy. That shouldn't be too much to ask -- but last night, it certainly felt like it.