There are moments of appallingly bad timing, and then there are moments of catastrophically bad timing. Of all the things to have happen twenty-four hours before the second Donk-bate, a massive Islamic terrorist attack is about the worst thing I can imagine from their casutically dhimmist Ameriphobic point of view.
Still, the surprise was that CBS actually showed a spasm of journalistic awareness by acknowledging the Paris attacks and adjusting the debate topic questions to accommodate it in timely fashion. Which pissed off Weekend Bernie to no end:
A top aide to Bernie Sanders disputed plans by CBS News to change the format for Saturday's second Democrat presidential debate in Iowa to focus on national security in light of the Paris terrorist attacks.
Sanders strategist Mark Longabaugh tore into CBS vice president and Washington bureau chief Christopher Isham after the news executive outlined the changes, Yahoo News reports.
"It was a little bit of a bizarre scene," a source from one of the other Democrat campaigns who was on the call told Yahoo.
"'The Sanders representative … really laid into CBS and basically … kind of threw, like, a little bit of a fit and said: 'You are trying to turn this into a foreign policy debate. That’s not what any of us agreed to. How can you change the terms of the debate, you know, on the day of the debate. That’s not right,'" the source said.
Welcome to the 3AM phone call, Bernie. America's enemies don't typically call ahead to make appointments on POTUS's schedule for their attacks. Usually they just kinda wing it according to their own daytimer.
Imagine if the Paris attacks had taken place in Manhattan, instead. I can only imagine the level of histrionics with which Senator Sanders would have nakedly communicated his immense disinclination to want the presidency in that circumstance.
No, no, he wants a "political revolution" in which the rest of the world doesn't exist and doesn't interrupt his "workers' paradise" or whatever and he gets to sit tranquilly on the viewing stand in Red Square waving imperiously while all the dismantled smokestacks pass by on their way to the hazardous materials recycling depot to be turned into raw materials for all the shovel-ready infrastructure projects the environmentalists won't let him undertake.
It's not difficult to divine the segue to which the Bern resorted:
Despite the Paris attacks on Friday that killed 129 people, Bernie Sanders [insist]ed Saturday that climate change still remained the world's greatest threat during the second Democrat presidential debate Saturday in Iowa.
"Absolutely," the Vermont senator said in response to a question from debate moderator John Dickerson. "In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. [emphasis added]
Did I call that yesterday or did I call it?:
I'd give it until the end of the weekend before "climate change" is blamed for the Paris attacks on the grounds that anthropogenic global warming is responsible for Middle East "droughts" that have caused "resource shortages" that led to the wars that have forced millions of Muslims to flee Europe-ward.
To quote Tony Stark in Iron Man III when he cartwheeled to intercept the faceplate of the Mark-42, "I'm the best."
"And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see countries all over the world — they're going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops, and you're going to see all kinds of international conflict."
Except....we're already seeing all kinds of international conflict, which is the product of Barack Obama's withdrawal of American influence from the world stage and dismantling of American power with which to re-exert it. That, unlike mythical "man-made global warming," is actually real. But an avowed Marxist-Leninist can't acknowledge that bleak, self-inflicted reality without committing ideological suicide, so Sanders has to make believe that "climate change" is real when it's not and pretend that it's fueling terrorism when it isn't, and pretty much sound really, really senile and foolish - to everybody except any Democrats who weren't too doobie-zonked to have tuned in and paid some level of sodden attention to the roaringly mendatious and delusional proceedings.
As for Mrs. Clinton, she was under fire all night, but of course, for all the wrong things:
Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came under early criticism in a debate on Saturday for her 2003 vote backing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, with Bernie Sanders linking it to regional chaos that aided the rise of Islamic State militants.
The day after a series of deadly bomb and gun attacks that killed at least 129 people in Paris, Sanders said the invasion was "one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the modern history of the United States."
"I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, unraveled the region immensely," said Sanders. He said it led to the rise of al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
No, Bernie, what unraveled the region immensely was Barack Obama's withdrawal of American forces from that region and forfeiture of the hard-won victory that they had achieved as a result of that invasion. More make-believe, in short, as he has to skip over twelve years of inconvenient history in order to find anything on which to go after the Empress that won't eviscerate the leftwingnut foreign policy Narrative. Imagine if he'd gone after her on Benghazi, for example. THAT would have left a mark.
You know what I'm starting to think? That Sanders really doesn't want the presidency or the Dem nomination and was implicitly attacking Herself from the left in order to help her frame the general election landscape for next year. That certainly appears to be the context in which her retort was offered:
[Mrs.] Clinton, who has frequently said the vote was a mistake, said it should be placed in the historical context of years of terrorism before the invasion.
"If we're ever going to really tackle the problems posed by jihadi[st] extremists, we need to understand it and realize that it has antecedents to what happened in Iraq," she said.
I'll guarantee you she wouldn't have said that if Elizabeth Warren had been on the stage, or used the word "jihadist," either.
Or gone on to utter the following:
"We have to look at ISIS as the leading threat of an international network. It cannot be contained - it must be defeated," she said, in a seeming rhetorical break from Barack Obama.
I can't wait to see how she's going to flesh out the details of that "rhetorical break," since the logic of it would seem to lead straight to another full-scale invasion of Iraq if she's really serious about it. Which, of course, she's not. Maybe her big idea is to invite the Russians to occupy Iraq as they already have Syria. You have to admit, that WOULD defeat ISIS, as well as dramatically expanding Vladimir Putin's "quagmire" of regional domination.
All of which is not to say that Her Nib morphed back into her "2008 faux-centrist" mode by any means. She regurgitated the standard lib canard that the Islamic State "isn't Islamic" and that we're "not at war with Islam," even though Islam is damn sure at war with us. Despite undeniable, incontrovertible proof that ISIS infiltrated the influx of Muslim migrants into the EU generally and France in particular to carry out Friday's massive attack all over Paris, she joined Sanders and the other guy to maintain the defense of O's planned importation of tens of thousands of "Syrian refugees" over the next several years.
Credit where credit is due: Though Weekend Bernie still wouldn't touch her gaping Emailgate vulnerability, even after recently having said that the FBI investigation is valid, he did unload on another of her massive soft spots, her immensely profitable relationship with Wall Street. If any point in that debate brought Hillary to the brink of panic, it was this one, judging by her bizarre, rambling answer:
“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,” said [Mrs.] Clinton, who represented New York from 2001 to 2009. “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.”
She took millions in Wall Street cash because al Qaeda targeted the World Trade Center? In that one soliloquy she managed to both not deflect Nutroot rage at her Wall Street ties and undermine her "Yes, I voted for the Iraq invasion, but...." defense simultaneously. Who says the Old Harridan isn't rhetorically nimble?
The jaw-thuddings on Twitter were deafening:
Politico’s Glenn Thrush: “Folks, Hillary's Earlier Answer On Wall Street Donations -- Linking Them To 9/11 -- Was Cray-Cray... And Will Haunt” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
Newsweek’s Matthew Cooper: “[Mrs.] Clinton's Response Had Too Many Jujitsu Moves: I Take Goldman Sachs Money Because I Get A Lot From Women And Otherwise The Terrorists Win.” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver: “[Mrs.] Clinton’s Response To That Twitter Question On The Strange Linkage She Drew Between Wall Street And 9/11 Made Very Little Sense…” “[Mrs.] Clinton’s response to that Twitter question on the strange linkage she drew between Wall Street and 9/11 made very little sense, and yet the crowd in Iowa cheered it.” (“CBS Democrat Debate: Live Coverage,” FiveThirtyEight, 11/14/15)
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman: “That 9/11 Response Is Going To Come Back To Haunt [Mrs.] Clinton In The Coming Days.” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
Time’s Zeke Miller: “This May Be Forever Be Known As The [Rodham] 9/11 Debate.” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
Daily Caller’s Alex Pappas: “Hillary Clinton Defends Relationship With Wall Street By Invoking… 9/11” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
Wil Wheaton: “Wow. Hillary Clinton Using 9/11 To Deflect And Justify Millions In Campaign Contributions From Wall Street Firms. Gross.” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
Yes, Wesley Crusher is now a "reporter". No word yet on whether Jim Parsons was covering the Donk-bate as well.
Los Angeles Times’ Chris Megerian: “[Mrs.] Clinton's Answer On Wall Street And 9/11 Already Coming Back To Haunt Her…” Megerian Tweet: “Our new media age - [Mrs.] Clinton's answer on Wall Street and 9/11 already coming back to haunt her in form of Twitter question relayed on stage.” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
The Daily Beast’s Tim Mak: “[Mrs.] Clinton Is Having As Bad A Night As She Could Be Expected To Have, With ISIS Not America's Fight And 9/11 Is Why I Took Wall Street $$” (Twitter.com, 11/14/15)
Of course, they'll all vote for her anyway if she's the Dem nominee. But the GOP future-attack ad fodder this constitutes is mouth-watering and irresistible, indeed.
I think RNC Chairman Reince Priebus summed up this two-hour waste of time pretty well:
“In what should have been a walk in the park for Hillary Clinton, tonight’s debate reinforced that she is inconsistent on issues, weak on terrorism and beholden to special interests.
“After running to the right of Barack Obama in 2008, tonight [Mrs.] Clinton continued to shift to the left on issue after issue to keep up with a seventy-four year old socialist from Vermont.
And she'll still probably lose.
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