The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Upright: “Las Vegas was a reminder that it is awfully hard to lose a nomination if no one truly plausible, let alone formidable, is running against you. The structure of the Democratic race from the beginning has been about propping up Hillary Clinton, and it still is. The party is putting on a master class in how to nominate someone under FBI investigation, and is willfully in denial about her vulnerabilities. Yes, Hillary had a good night. She was polished, knowledgeable, shrewd and hard-hitting — clearly, not someone to be trifled with. But the debate was a false indicator of her strength.” —Rich Lowry

Belly laugh of the week: “We’ve just come through two and a half hours of a Democratic debate that showed more substance and a more robust discussion about how to move America forward from our five candidates than nearly 10 hours of the first two Republican debates.” —Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Too much information: “I actually am aroused by [Bernie Sanders]. I’m serious. I find him to be eye candy, not ear candy, eye candy. I like an old Jewish guy who’s a socialist. That’s my type of guy. Everybody is talking about [Martin] O'Malley and how hot he was, but to me Bernie is hot.” —Joy Behar

Demo-gogues: “It’s not just mass shootings. It is the daily shootings that take place in cities across America. It is easier to buy a gun than buy a book.” —Barack Obama (“[T]hugs wielding firearms in mostly urban areas would find the book buying process extremely difficult. For one thing, they’d have to know how to read. The literacy rate in Chicago … is 53 percent. And you can bet that the literacy standard is hardly what you and I would consider adequate. Second, it would be extremely difficult for these wayward youths to choose suitable literature.” —Truth About Guns publisher Robert Farago)

Non Compos Mentis: “The families themselves of these [American] hostages [held in Iran] knew exactly what our strategy was and why it was important not to hold a nuclear agreement hostage to hostages. It was the right thing to do.” —John Kerry

And last… “This is not a healthy party. [Democrats] are relying on carbon-dated, pre-Obama candidates to hold onto his White House. There were more bathroom breaks at this debate than there were candidates of color and youth.” —Stephen Miller