Let Them Fight

During the Democratic primary debate at the Felt Forum in New York City, in April 1988, Al Gore pointed out that Michael Dukakis had a big problem.

The senator from Tennessee mentioned that the Massachusetts governor, who had leapt to the front of the Democratic primary field, had sustained a furlough program that involved “weekend passes for convicted criminals,” one of whom had committed rape and assault while furloughed.

I thought of that moment in the Democratic debate in 1988 last week, after former Obama Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro was pilloried for suggesting that former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner for the nomination, , asking Biden, “Are you forgetting what you said just two minutes ago?” Some Democrats, including the Biden campaign, suggested Castro had taken a “cheap shot;” Representative Vicente Gonzalez his endorsement from Castro to Biden. Castro, for his part, were “not a personal