Jim Lehrer asks the candidates what spending programs, if any, they might limit or cut in light of the $700 billion bailout and other budget constraints. John McCain suggests a partial budget freeze. Barack Obama responds: “The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are under-funded. I want to increase early childhood education....”

We’re in a major financial crisis, and Barack Obama wants to increase spending in an area where there’s notoriously little evidence that spending has paid off, an area that in any case isn’t a primary responsibility of the federal government (or perhaps of any level of government). Obama’s ritualistic invocation of early childhood education as deserving ever more funding is a reminder, one might say, of the deep childishness of contemporary liberalism.