For those who didn’t see the Democrat debate tonight, after all it was on CNN, here is a recap. It started out with some bickering among the candidates, most of whom took shots at Sen. Clinton’s inability to state a position on giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens. To that and many other questions, Hillary’s response was her usual, ‘the American people know where I stand…’ Oh really? I must have missed it. All of them seemed to be running against Bush, who isn’t running.

On the drivers license subject, some came right out and said, like Gov. Bill Richardson, that yes they should be permitted to have a drivers license. Sen. Barak Obama thought it was a good idea too. Others hid behind the smoke of ‘we need comprehensive immigration reform,’ which is code for amnesty, drivers licenses, and more, but they wouldn’t come out and answer the question whether they should have a drivers license.

All of them wanted out of Iraq, and Iran is also out of the question. The most hawkish on Iran was Hillary who did go so far as to say that we should use diplomacy with Iran but keep the stick. She didn’t elaborate on the stick part. She held true to her belief system which is she hasn’t one. She likes blue ribbon panels to make decisions for her.

Iran brought out the weakness of them all on the subject of the Quds Force, the terrorist-supporting wing of the Iranian military. There seemed to be a consensus that calling them a terrorist organization was not nice, except Hillary. She’s the one who voted in favor of the resolution that labeled them a terrorist organization. She had no where to hide on that one, especially after her drivers license debacle at their last debate.

Wolf Blitzer, host of the debate, joined the ranks of Brian Williams and Tim Russert in qualifying for the Chris Matthews award by not asking or even mentioning the Iranian made 107mm rockets and super penetrating IED’s that are killing ours and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians. A fair question was again ignored, giving way to their diplomatic story line.

John Edwards’ hair looked good. He had trouble completing a sentence that didn’t have the words Bush, Cheney, and neocons in it. Obviously appealing to the Soros wing of their party, but looking very silly for harping on them.

All of them spoke confidently on raising taxes for this that and the other. And on the subject of taxes, another Chris Matthews moment came up. None of them were asked whether they would make permanent the Bush tax cuts due to expire in 2010, which if elected, would be during their first term. Hold on to your wallet or make your escape plan.

On education, Wolf did ask a relevant question. Should exceptional teachers be rewarded with higher pay or bonus incentives? They were in complete agreement in towing the line of the teachers unions with a NO. It was blatantly obvious that the success of the students were not a priority. Hillary surprised me by saying, no, don’t reward good teachers, just fire the bad ones. Another rather stunning revelation was that they couldn’t agree what made a teacher a good teacher. Joe Biden, whose wife is a teacher with a masters and doctorate degree, believes that a good teacher is one who has multiple and higher degrees than just a bachelors degree. No one, not one of them, thought that successful students were relevant in determining whether a teacher was exceptional. Hillary ignored the students’ success by taking the village format. She said all the teachers in a given school should be rewarded if the school does well. Doing well doesn’t mean that the students do well. Doing well by her standards means teachers who teach in the worst of cities or neighborhoods are the ones to be rewarded with higher pay. More like combat pay. Again, no measure of the success of the students was offered. On the subject of education, it is clear that Democrats don’t give a wit about the success of the students, let alone merit pay for a job well done.

One of the funniest and scariest subjects was that of appointments to the Supreme Court. They all wanted an abortion litmus test for potential appointments to the Supreme Court. Abortion is the holy sacrament of the liberals’ political philosophy. None of them seemed at all interested in a strict constructionist type justice. John Edwards said he didn’t want a constitutional scholar on the bench, he wanted ‘a dog catcher’ on the bench. Literally, no exaggeration. I have to give him credit on at least saying what the others wouldn’t say. Which is, they want the supreme court to be filled with justices who don’t know what it is they are supposed to uphold, and who will uphold whatever the democrats want that they can’t get done through the people, the legislature.

After those grueling two hours, I don’t think it is necessary to see any more of their debates. If you see one, you’ve seen them all.

CNN link

UPDATE 11/19/07: ‘undecided’ voters were plants, activists, and Democrat operatives.