Martin O'Malley, you didn't score any points with this one. Our party and coalition is built from many parts -- young, old, men, women, Blacks, Latinos, and more.
Republicans constantly try to divide Democrats by generation, particularly when it comes to issues like Social Security and Medicare. They try to tell younger liberals that they should support privatization and weakening of those programs because the older folks will make sure there's nothing left for them. And so on.
During the debate Saturday night, there was quite an exchange going on between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders about Assad and ISIS. Their differences center on Assad. In a nutshell, Sanders thinks the focus should be on ISIS, and Assad as the lesser issue, while Hillary sees Assad as a larger barrier to weakening ISIS.
They're both right in their own way, and certainly they were having a substantive debate about it when Martin O'Malley interjected with this unnecessary comment, after which he went into a patronizing explanation of the Cold War and how Cold War attitudes don't have a place in today's modern society.
This, from a man who just before this moment, argued for expansion of the CIA and diplomatic intelligence services. If CIA expansion isn't considered a Cold War leftover, I'm not sure what is.
O'Malley's nastiness wasn't lost on the audience, who you can hear booing after he interrupted Bernie by "offering a different generation's perspective on this."
There was no need for him to say that. It could have been as simple as him saying he, Martin O'Malley, had a different perspective. There was no call to make it sound like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were mildewed old people who should be put out to pasture.
Shame on him.
