I actually watched the debate tonight (my plans for a far more enjoyable evening, which included a body-cavity search by the TSA and stepping on a nail, having fallen through at the last moment).
I’d give it to the team of Lester Holt and Hillary Clinton. They worked well together, and Mr. Trump was on defense most of the evening. He was good on some topics, rambling and unfocused on many others, and woefully bad at pressing Mrs. Clinton when the opportunity arose. How, for example, could he listen to her lecture us about cybersecurity without hammering on her own willful and utterly unforgivable laxity? How could he let her take him to task as beholden to questionable influences without bringing up the Clintons’ obscene pay-for-play empire? How could he let her paint him as an abuser of women without mentioning her casual destruction of so many women in the defense of sexual predators, including the Rapist-In-Chief? These are not difficult targets, and would have inflicted richly deserved pain. What gives?
To the credit of her medical team, Mrs. Clinton remained upright and conscious throughout; her eyes generally pointed in the same direction, and she did not cough up an alveolus. (It’s a low bar, yes, but she sailed over it.)
Nobody should underestimate her. She is, after all, a Clinton: a tough, smart, experienced and utterly ruthless politician, deeply accustomed to power. Her eyes glitter at the nearness of the ultimate prize. Behind her are an enormous political, business, and media machine, an ocean of money, and the support, though often tepid, of many millions of Americans (including many of my friends and family). She will not go gently into that good night.
Anyway, what a pleasure to watch two such inspiring candidates cross hands in thoughtful debate! Can’t wait to see how the next few years are going to go.
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Maybe it was just the hillbilly in me but what I watched was a career politician lecture a guy who, very obviously, isn’t.
And maybe Trump needed to “get one under his belt” before the next two meet ups. He missed a lot of openings but will hit them next time. He will also realize that he must moderate the moderator. Lester Holt filled the role of Candy Crowley a few times. He hopefully sees that the media is as much an enemy as HRC.
I suppose after a good enough few digesting, though I have yet to watch NBC to learn what I actually think, I may just go in, cast an early vote then take a vacay.
They say Bab al-Azizia is lovely this time of year.
What a weird debate.
Trump’s constant sniffling was really weird. Runny nose, erratic hand movements, drinking a lot of water, arguing with the woman next to you: I was around in the eighties, and I’ve seen that behavior before. I had thought that Trump gave up cocaine since his Studio 54 days, but maybe not. I’m not the only one to ask, as this was a big thing on social media last night. People want to know. I don’t blame them.
Watching this seventy year old fat guy get highly excitable and agitated, shaking his arms and his face getting flushed, I wondered if he wasn’t going to keel over with a heart attack, like the ad agency head in Putney Swope:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPgId7RgQ2E
How many syllables, Donald? How many syllables, Donald?
The moderating was weird. Deceptions and complete fabrications flew out of Trump’s mouth like water from a fire hose, and a search party had to be sent out to find Lester Holt.
(It would be nice if our timorous media would apply the same standards to Trump that they do to Clinton. I particularly enjoyed seeing Matt Lauer preface a question with “nobody expects you to know this,” as though someone running for President was not expected to be conversant with basic facts. However when one candidate was meeting with heads of state, while the other was hosting a cheesy television show, maybe that’s about all you could expect.
Personally I’d just like him to be asked about his bribery of two District Attorneys so they wouldn’t join other states in litigating against Trump “university.” After seeing many confident assertions of Hillary Clinton’s purported criminality by eager graduates of the Wikipedia School of Law, it is striking that a prima facie case of bribery is completely ignored. But that’s just me.)
I enjoyed watching Trump fly into a blustery, bellicose, red-in-the-face rant, and then telling us that perhaps his greatest asset is his temperament.
I also enjoyed seeing him whine that Hillary’s campaign ads were “not nice.” Coming from the foulest gutter-diver in modern American history, that’s really rich.
Jerry Springer summed it up nicely: “Hillary Clinton belongs in the White House. Donald Trump belongs on my show.”
But hey: last night’s shutout doesn’t mean that we know the final score. This has been such a wacky year that only a fool would predict the outcome. Who knows what will happen?However, once the votes are all in, I’ll be happy to explain why the results were inevitable.
I figured you’d pop by for a quick gloat-n’-troll, Pedro.
You’re right that this doesn’t mean we know “the final score”; we won’t know that, of course, until November (or if 2000 is any precedent, perhaps not even then). I wouldn’t call last night a “shutout”, by any means — many polls had Trump as the victor — though as I said, in my view Mrs. Clinton came out ahead.
I’m not here to defend Donald Trump against the many valid criticisms that can be raised against him. He is in many ways a grotesque and unsophisticated man. He’s a vain and preening popinjay, an unlettered boor of low tastes, and far too prone to bullying and childish insults.
That said, however, he is also fearlessly willing to stake out taboo positions on vitally important issues, and to speak forbidden truths where others quail and cavil. Most important of all, he is all that stands between us and a Hillary Clinton presidency — a political catastrophe that in my opinion would be fatal to everything worth preserving of the traditional American nation.
Moreover, as bad as he might be in purely ethical terms, he has been Saint Francis of Assisi compared to the Clintons, who in my opinion are uniquely and irremediably evil. You can sum up my position as #NeverHillary.
A choice must be made. May Mr. Trump prevail.
“It would be nice if our timorous media would apply the same standards to Trump that they do to Clinton.”
Funny you type that.
I’d like our media to apply the same standards to Clinton that they do to Trump.
I went over to Diplomad’s place just now, and we seem to have written almost the same post (though his is more detailed).
“Great minds think alike”, I guess. (I suppose others might say “fools seldom differ”.)
Malcolm, I admire the fact you watched the mess last night. Diplomad as well. For me, I had to perform a root canal on myself with pliers and battery driven drill.
I notice *somebody* over on Diplomad’s site commented:
Could’ve made it abit more pithy I suppose but …
All y’all will not be surprised to learn that I did not watch the debate since we live where my wife’s career path dictates, and at this point in time that happens to be California, where the Leftists rule. Naturally, my political views are completely swamped in this state by the deplorables, like the OEM.
Nevertheless, I will not shirk my duty to vote, despite the fact that my vote will have absolutely no bearing on the national, state-wide, and (most likely) the local elections here. My only comfort in so doing is the knowledge that the gloating troll’s votes, in both the national and the state-wide elections, will be completely nullified by my own votes.
“He’s a vain and preening popinjay, an unlettered boor of low tastes, and far too prone to bullying and childish insults.”
Well said, and yet we will vote for him. As further testament to the rot in the system, I will do so with greater zeal than which I have voted for any other single candidate in my entire life. I will do so for the greatest of ironies: for the substance of the man, what little that may be. It is not often that I throw myself at the feet of the Devil that I do not know, but in this case the Devil that I do know has shown such monumental poor judgement on those issues most important to our future. Fiscal solvency; Social Security; marginal tax rates and capital gains; tax the rich, feed the poor, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy My Street; Whoever’s Lives Matter; Microagreesion, Macroagreesion, Nanoaggression, Non-aggression; Men’s room, women’s room, Save the Whales, the Dolphins, Free Tibet, The Economy or Muh Rights; etc., etc., ad nausea are of no consequence whatsoever when all of these, when every. single. little. thing depends on who we are and how we see the world. And today who we are depends not on how we raise our children or how many children we have, but overwhelmingly on who we allow to enter our political boundaries. Immigration. It’s a tool and a weapon, and it is the most contentious public policy issue in every single multi-cultural polity.
http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2016/06/i-think-we-will-probably-lose.html
Well said also, e.