The candidates for president—Republican and Democratic alike—have spent the last few days folding sheets of paper in half, pressing the unbearable Paris tragedy between the two sides, and then describing to the country what they see in the resulting blot.
Their interpretations tell us more than we could ever have expected to learn from their reality-show posturing in the debates, or from their playful speeches, or from their preening tweets.
The difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, for example, has never been more stark than it was at the Democratic debate following the attacks. When the moderator asked the candidates for an example of a crisis they’d faced, Clinton talked about her contributions to the hunt that killed Osama bin Laden. Sanders, on the other hand, described a fight—that he lost—over a veterans’ bill. And Martin O’Malley came off as a pleasant man clearing his throat at a dinner party…
