Is it safe for me and my wife to return from our vacation in Eastern Europe?
I don’t know how many Americans who tuned into the two Democratic presidential debates on CNN this week actually paid attention or were able to stay awake both nights.
But anyone who can prove they watched all six hours deserves some kind of psychiatric help from the government.
Maybe Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the other progressives who want to be president can add free counseling for Post-Traumatic Debate Syndrome to the list of freebies they’re promising to give every American.
I’m still in Austria - or is it Budapest?
But my sources back home tell me that for two nights leftist Democrats tooted their own tin horns, attacked each others’ pie-in-the-sky “Medicare for All” health care plans and proved once again that not one of them is qualified to be president.
When they weren’t calling the president a racist or promising to give trillions of dollars of free health care college and other stuff to Americans or illegal aliens, the candidates were railing against the usual devils - the NRA, the Koch Brothers, greedy drug companies, the evil fossil fuel industry, etc.
The Democrats’ top talent looked bad, but CNN ought to be ashamed of itself.
Not just for using its Trump-hating trio of Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and Don Lemon as moderators.
Not just for devising a high-speed debate format that gave no one enough time to answer, rebut or explain anything.
Not just for not asking any questions about the economy or the Mueller Report.
CNN should be ashamed for producing a lousy presidential debate like it was a Super Bowl telecast.
Ten debaters were introduced each night like they were the starters on a pro football team, when actually they were two or three star players and a bunch of scrubs and walk-ons who’ll never make the cut.
The big winner on night one was Elizabeth Warren, the shrill progressive professor who has written comprehensive plans to fix everything from college loan debt to climate change.
Warren and her arm-waving soulmate, angry Bernie Sanders, became a socialist tag-team.
They spent the night defending their costly left-wing health care pipe-dreams from the occasionally sensible attacks of moderate lefties like millionaire businessman and ex-Congressman John Delaney and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio.
Delaney and Ryan, like Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, had their moments - seconds, really.
The only real entertainment at the Tuesday night debate was provided by Mary Williamson, the new age spiritualist and self-help author whose hippie rants about “dark psychic forces” and political failure in Washington made her the most Googled name of the night.
The second debate in Detroit had more star power, but even fewer laughs and just as many unlikable and humorless Democrats making dozens of un-keepable promises and gratuitous Trump slurs.
Joe Biden brought his C game Wednesday and was much better prepared.
But Kamala Harris and a supporting gang headed by Corey Booker, Julian Castro and Kirsten Gillibrand went after him all night like a pack of jackals attacking an old water buffalo.
Biden was left standing, barely. He made at least seven gaffes and looked old.
He had trouble defending the now politically incorrect positions he held on crime, school busing, the drug war and working women during his 40 plus years in DC.
It wasn’t pretty. If there is a big sympathy vote out there in the American electorate, Old Joe won it.
Meanwhile, Harris got some of her own nasty medicine.
She was badly wounded when Tulsi Gabbard, the congresswoman from Hawaii, suddenly brought up some of the un-progressive highlights of her career as California’s tough-on-crime Attorney General.
Winners on Night Two? Biden, by default. Gabbard. Maybe Booker or Castro, if you grade on a generous curve. The rest were losers.
For the week, Prof. Warren was the big winner, if you don’t count President Trump.
The big losers were Harris and the Democrat Party, which showed the country just how broken and crazy it is.
Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.
