Clinton lost all credibility the minute her supporters started booing the other candidates. Their supporters did not boo her. I understand they were all given tickets for their supporters to attend the event. It was rude!!!!!

Obama clearly dominated the debate. Clinton did not crmple, but she also got a bunch of softballs from CNN.

Better get used to Clinton/Obama. There is the ticket.

NBC/MSBC....take notice of the CNN debate. CNN was fair and didn't SET-UP ONE candidate for failure (Clinton). CNN had good, relevant questions in this debate that are important to the American people. The UFO question that was asked by NBC to Kucinich two weeks ago was weak and irrelevant.

Mark Penn can't stop triangulating, even in the spin room.  Obama's answer on security v. human rights was a high point of the night.  Obviously, if we apply our principles of human rights to foreign countries our security will be improved.  They are complementary and not mutually exclusive principles.  It was an intelligent comment.  Hillary's national security answer was a sop to Republicans for the general election.  It figures that Mark Penn would love that answer; he probably trained her on it.  More Clintonian political expediency.
Obama '08

They all suck I'm voting republican

Obama wasn't ambiguous.  He is right.  What do you say National Security (let them bomb us) versus Human Rights (let's kill the immigrants)?  The question and many of Wolf's are Catch 22 and only designed to pigeon-hole and trip up candidates.  I think that the NAFTA (thanks partly to Bill (not Richardson) laugh will come back to haunt Hillary.  NAFTA is part of the reason everyone is scapegoating the illegal immigrants and there are no good jobs left in the USA. Obama was talking about trade agreements that made sense with restrictions and conditions with Peru.  The mess we are in in this country was not a Republican mess or a Democratic mess.  It was a joint effort. Now we have to work together to fix it.  

You know I'm glad certain candidates choose human rights over National Security.  Our nation was founded on the basic principal that we(all people) are endowed with certain inalienable rights.  These rights can't be taken or given away they are our human rights.  Our forefathers liked them so much the wrote the protections necessary to maintain them into the bill of rights creating our basic civil rights.

I'm very glad at least a few democrats remember that we as a nation are stronger when our foreing policy is based on recognozing the inalienable rights of others as well.

You have the security model that resulted in the shah and cia trained savat leading to the iranian revolution and current issues you have there.  Security over rights economic national security in that case.

And you have WWII and the Marshall Plan as examples of foreign policies driven by human rights a just cause and respect for our common man.

I know full well which candidates embraced the inalienable rights of man tonight and which forsook them for "National Security"

A man has no security from those who place it above liberty.

Clinton and biden have certainly demonstrated in their votes for the patriot act they place their concept of National Security above liberty.  I do not.

Give me liberty or give me death - Patrick Henry

At first I thought that instead of yapping about Yucca, Richardson's spinsters should have been doing damage control regarding his answer that human rights should be a higher priority than national security for an American president (what Constitution is he smoking?).  But in reality, they probably observed that this massive, (Vice-)Presidential prospect-ending mistake was more toxic than what's buried under Yucca Mountain.  Simply a very bad look for Richardson, but not too surprising given his "all troops out in a year policy," which is simply not feasible or advisable if you care to minimize dead American soldiers and contractors and Iraqis.

I cannot understand why all democratic candidates allow Mr. Bush to get away with his vetoes on the basis of pork, when all one has to do is look back at his record on the pork he allowed the Congress to pass when he had control of both the House and the Senate. I dont believe they sent him a single bill he didn't like loaded withthe whole hog.

I can’t believe this crap from Clinton’s campaign. She thinks Security and Human right are in contrast. Evidence in the last 4 years tells us otherwise. America will continue to be hated if we go on this course of seeing our security as contrasting to other people’s liberty

A classical evidence of Hillary Clinton’s position on this issue is currently unfolding in Pakistan. Basically, what this does is to promote U.S. security at the expense of human right and liberty. Support Military coup and Military government at the expense of democratic elected government e.g. General Musharef  

Until we start seeing Security and Human Right as complimentary, America’s image will continue to get hammered abroad. People will continue to hate us.

A vote for Hillary is a vote for Neo-Con policy.

Security and Human Right are complimentary rather than contrasting.

I thought that the debate was a set up and have posted a number of comments about it. But I now want to point out something very specific.  

When Hilliary attacked Edwards by saying he was throwing "mud" at her they didn't ask her a followup by asking for a specific example. What does she consider throwing mud? On top of that after she made this accusation they never let Edwards respond. I beleive they then went to Biden.

Later in the debate when Biden had just finished answering a question Blitzer said something like now we'll go to Senator Clinton for a response. Biden chimes in Hey I didn't attack her (in effect asking why Blitzer was going to Hilliary for a response). Blitzer mumbles something about Hilliary voting for what Biden was talking about so she deserves response time.

So why does Blitzer give Hilliary response time when she isn't attacked but fails to give Edwards response time when he clearly was attacked.  

You know if I were a Clinton supporter I'd be awfully worried after this debate. Evidently her campaign doesn't trust that she can win on her own. They have to provide her with assistance from the debate moderator, the audience and then the commentators after the debate. That does not bode well for the general election. Do we really want a candidate that has to be propped up in order to not be blown out of the water?

No doubt what so ever who CNN would like to see as the next President.  With two former Clinton staffers covering the post debate how can we even take CNN seriously anymore.  They move Edwards out of the picture so they can focus on Obama/Clinton does the media really think the American public is that stupid?  Hillary is such a fake and didn't get pressed on NAFTA I guess that's because Wolf was warned by campaig Hillary to be nice and it wouldn't surprise me if they used death threats.  This woman will do anything and try to control everything (she's already got the media) to get elected.  We lose if she gets the nomination the Republicant's are going to walk all over her, they won't let her get away with not answering the tough questions.  Wake up America and get an Obama/Edwards ticket before it's too late.  I could not imagagine another 8 years a Republican't administration worse yet Hillary gets elected and we have another Bush/Clinton administration it would ruin our country.    

Will the Obama people make fun of Obama for answering the Driver's License question exactly the same as Hillary did two weeks ago?  Will the Edwards people defend their candidates flip flops as better than Hillary's flip flops?  I'm just curious.  It's time to get back to the issues and stop bashing fellow Democrats.  Hillary dominated that debate and anyone who thinks that one candidate got more tickets for their supporters than any other canidate is just full of it.  That crowd cheered for Obama and Edwards until they went negative.  Hillary had the best answers and was the most Presidential than anyone up there.  Maybe if Kucinich would stop screaming about impeachment and tell the American people what he would do as President, maybe he would get more airtime.  I thought Richardson had his best debate.  Biden, Dodd and Kucinich deserved more air time.  Hillary was the clear winner.  Hillary or any Dem in 08!

Edwards mistook Yucca Mountain for Brokeback Mountain, and said he was all for it.

CNN----Clinton News Network....

That was all what the debate was about.......

I have comments about debating on big issues.

Most people expect clear/definitive answers at a debate or during campaign. The reality is that most important issues are extremely complicated. They require careful considerations from various perspectives, including the background history (how the problem has evolved to this critical point), the goal, the plan for execution, the feasibility of the plan,....etc. Most solutions to big issues cannot be clearly explained/laidout in a few minutes, let alone a simple yes/no answer. Take ending Iraq war as an example. Thanks to the ideological stubbornness (if we believe they are basically good people in heart) of the current administration, it is too late to lament on why we should not have started the war in the first place. Now we have to concentrate on how to clean up the mess. One extreme solution is to pull out our troops ASAP (after we get rid of the current regime of course). However, there are many challenges for this plan. Even if we disregard the stability of the Iraqi government and the suffering of the Iragi people, the logistics of sending troops back are daunting: we need transportation; we need some forces left behind to protect the withdrawing troops; we need to pack our equipments and ammunitions; unfortunately we probably need more expenses for a while,...etc. Ultimately, none of the candidates have military experiences to draw such a plan.  The withdraw requires the input of many experienced military heads and political brains. Any candidate who promises a definite timeline for withdrawl is not a careful thinker and irresponsible. Besides, we (even only some of us) created the unstable situations in Iraq and we have a moral/humanitarian resposibility for the Iraqui people. How do we do that after complete withdrawl?

Immigration is another complicated issue. Even if we go for the extreme measure and have enough law enforcement to flush out all illegal immigrants, what are we going to do with them? Where do we detain them? How will we send them back? Who will pay for the transportation? Do we have the heart to separate the illegal immigrant parents from the children who were born in US? How do we fill the vacuum in the work place? If the businesses have to hire legal employees at higher wages, are we, middle class, ready to pay higher prices on goods/services?

The bottomline is that it is one thing to set ideological goals but it is another matter to achieve those goals.  The roads to the goals may be slow and painful with many setbacks. The question is which candidate has the intellect, the ability to draw plans from the collective advices from an experienced group, the flexibility and openmindedness to change (in case one plan does not work), and ultimately our trust to guide us in the difficult time toward those goals.

I have comments about debating on big issues.

Most people expect clear/definitive answers at a debate or during campaign. The reality is that most important issues are extremely complicated. They require careful considerations from various perspectives, including the background history (how the problem has evolved to this critical point), the goal, the plan for execution, the feasibility of the plan,....etc. Most solutions to big issues cannot be clearly explained/laid-out in a few minutes, let alone a simple yes/no answer. Take ending Iraq war as an example. Thanks to the ideological stubbornness (if we believe they are basically good people in heart) of the current administration, it is too late to lament on why we should not have started the war in the first place. Now we have to concentrate on how to clean up the mess. One extreme solution is to pull out our troops ASAP (after we get rid of the current regime of course). However, there are many challenges for this plan. Even if we disregard the stability of the Iraqi government and the suffering of the Iraqi people, the logistics of sending troops back are daunting: we need transportation; we need some forces left behind to protect the withdrawing troops; we need to pack our equipments and ammunitions; unfortunately we probably need more expenses for a while,...etc. Ultimately, none of the candidates have military experiences to draw such a plan.  The withdrawal requires the input of many experienced military heads and political brains. Any candidate who promises a definite timeline for withdrawal is not a careful thinker and irresponsible. Besides, we (even only some of us) created the unstable situations in Iraq and we have a moral/humanitarian responsibility for the Iraqi people. How do we do that after complete withdrawal?

Immigration is another complicated issue. Even if we go for the extreme measure and have enough law enforcement to flush out all illegal immigrants, what are we going to do with them? Where do we detain them? How will we send them back? Who will pay for the transportation? Do we have the heart to separate the illegal immigrant parents from the children who were born in US? How do we fill the vacuum in the work place? If the businesses have to hire legal employees at higher wages, are we, middle class, ready to pay higher prices on goods/services?

The bottom line is that it is one thing to set ideological goals but it is another matter to achieve those goals.  The roads to the goals may be slow and painful with many setbacks. The question is which candidate has the intellect, the ability to draw plans from the collective advices from an experienced group, the flexibility and open-mindedness to change (in case one plan does not work), and ultimately our trust to guide us in the difficult time toward those goals.

The drivers' licence question showed that the Dems just don't get it. They all talked about "comprehensive immigration reform" and how that's what america wants. it's been shown several times over the past few months that it is exactly what America DOESN"T want. If they keep pushing amnesty, no matter how they word it, they give the GOP another arrow in their quiver. The "surge isn't working" rhetoric will probably cost them too. Penn needs to triangulate a way around that.

Our Federal Governments (Executive branch) number one responsibility is to secure our borders and protect us. We have allowed the govt to take over every other aspect of our lives. The US has been the most charitable country by far for the past hundred years. Guess what they still hate us, they hated us when Carter was President, Clinton, and both Bushs. They hated but respected us with Reagan. Remember he also was starting WWIII. We can not judge ourselves based on the way the rest of the world feels about us. Regaurdless of their rhetoric they will call on us when they need help. That my friends is the cost of being the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!

Thank you Yang Ko for a very good well thought out post, we do have many problems to deal with and they will be very complicated, everyone should get off the ME ME ME train and come together and be part of the process after the election, write your congress, the next president and tell them in clear concise terms what you want done. It's called democracy people not vote and forget it!
Bee you have a good point but human nature kills reason everytime, that is why we have the problems we do, the seven deadly sins are used to stop change and protect one tribe over the other. That is why if you are not a died in the wool repub you should vote for the dem candidate, our tribe must prevail against their tribe, it is as simple as that! I respect that you have chosen your candidate already, I have to wait till april to see if mine even will be running, if not I will have options, I will then make a coice. I will not cry and stamp my feet, I will chose another within my party, It will come down to that. Bite the bullet and swallow your pride if your person does not get the nod, do you really want Rudy to win?

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