Democrats and their supporters in the media are congratulating themselves for a job well done in the first Democratic debate. Both Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton included in their closing remarks canned celebrations of how civil and morally superior the Democratic debate was compared with the earlier GOP donnybrooks.
The New York Times began its Wednesday editorial extolling the value of civility thus: “It was impossible not to feel a sense of relief watching the Democratic debate after months dominated by the Republican circus of haters, ranters, and that very special group of king killers in Congress.”
Longtime Hillary Clinton pet Lanny Davis churned out a column headlined, “The real winner in Las Vegas Tuesday night was the Democratic party — in stark contrast to the GOP.”
Now, it is true that Donald Trump’s presence in the first two prime-time debates lends a superficial credence to claims that the Republican field is more coarse and insulting. Trump, after all, is coarse and insulting. He uses words like “losers” and “dumb” as if they’re punctuation marks.