The debate on Saturday exposed the real weakness the Democratic field has on national security. None of the three candidates were willing to state the obvious: that President Obama’s foreign-policy fecklessness has made America less safe. Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell told CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday that “it’s now crystal clear to us that our strategy, our policy, vis-à-vis ISIS is not working, and it’s time to look at something else.” The day before, Morell had told CBS’s 48 Hours that it was now the duty of the intelligence community to confront President Obama with that news.

The sad truth is that the victims of Friday’s terrorist attacks — the French — are far more clear-eyed about the threat facing them and more willing to acknowledge that they need a new strategy. In January, after the Charlie Hebdo attacks and long before Friday’s massacres, French prime minister Manuel Valls declared: “We are at war — not a war against a religion, not a war against a civilization, but to defend our values, which are universal. It’s a war against terrorism and radical Islamism, against everything that would break our solidarity, our liberty, our fraternity.” On Sunday, France signaled a renewed commitment to the War on Terror by launching punishing air strikes against ISIS.