THE FIRST DEBATE BETWEEN presidential contenders was a disgrace. It was akin to a couple of kindergarten boys tussling on the playground.
It might have been seemly in England’s House of Commons where shouting down those with opposing opinions and calling each other names — “clown” was the Biden favorite — are common practices (ergo, House of Commons).
America showed its worst side.
Who won the debate?
That is open to debate.
Who LOST the debate is clear: the American people lost the debate.
I watched the fiasco.
Before the next debate
- 1. Equip the moderator with
- a gavel to gavel the unruly opponents
microphone cut-off switch so the opponents won’t
- (1) talk over each other
(2) their railings won’t be heard by the suffering audience
2. Get a moderator with authority.
Chris Wallace1 seems a nice enough guy, but he was overwhelmed by the combatants.
3. Establish penalties for name calling and interruptions.
- I’m not sure how this would work; perhaps a PENALTY SCORE on the front of each candidate’s podium.
4. Insist that before ranting off topic, the candidate answer the moderator’s question.
- Both combatants were guilty of going off on tangents rather than addressing the question.
Ban “cheat sheets”
Biden was constantly referring to a “cheat sheet” and apparently checking off categories.
I believe Wallace when he said the two blusterers were not given a list of categories or questions in the categories, but it was painfully obvious that Biden used a cheat sheet as a crutch to form his responses to Wallace’s queries. Question: Is Biden ambidextrous? I noted he kept moving his pen from right hand to left and back again.
When Trump attacked him, Biden responded sans a peek at the cheat sheet — that, too, was obvious because he stumbled over his words, going off on several false starts.
Advice for Trump
Stop interrupting and behaving like a spoiled two-year-old.
The country already is suffering from a lack of civility.
Much of this can be laid at the feet of Hilary Clinton and her party.
But a goodly portion of the blame lies with Trump, particularly his knee-jerk tweets.
During the first “debate,” he continually interrupted Biden and frequently the moderator, too.
This is not the image a leader should present and it will do Trump no good at the polls.
Let Biden speak; his false starts will do Trump more good than Trump’s interrupting.
Advice for Biden
Stop the name calling and the personal attacks on the president.
Your loyalists might cheer you on, but your loyalists are not all the voters.
Attack Trump on his record. Attack Trump on his tweets and Executive Orders.
Stay away from attacks on his family — yours is highly venerable to a counter-attack.
You might want to avoid bringing up The Wall since Democrats are the ones who prevent it from being built.
Media: Fact check everything or nothing
I don’t recall which network I was forcing myself to watch, but the “fact checker” seemed — seemed — to give more “passes” to Biden.
One Biden “fact” that needed to be challenged was Trump’s taxes.
The former VP cited a New York Times article, since debunked multiple times, that Trump only paid $750 — not thousands or millions, dollars — in federal taxes.
Trump did counter that his benefits were gifts from Biden’s former boss. Trump also admitted that, as any businessman (or, I add, politician) would, he took full advantage of loopholes in the law.
Biden repeated said he intends to heavily tax anyone with an income in excess of US$400,000 and levy heavy taxes on Big Business.
An aside: The Trump administration did not put those loopholes into the tax law. Biden had 47 years to close them but did not.
Compare records
While Biden attacked Trump for what the challenger suggested was a late start to battle the pandemic, Trump countered that Biden objected to closing the doors to Chinese visitors and, Trump suggested, Biden did no better when facing H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Biden’s reaction as vice president was to hunker down, despite his president’s position that there “was no need to panic even as he declared a national health emergency.“2
Trump’s refrain of the evening was a challenge to Biden: “What have you done in your 47 years in office?” Trump’s challenge went unanswered.
Extremists
Biden challenged Trump to state that he does not support “white supremacist” and Trump failed to address the issue. The president reminded that, in his opinion, extremists are found not just in Antifa, but from the left as well.
Interestingly, Biden only was concerned with white extremists; people of color apparently get a pass from the former vice president.
A Trump insider later told one of the networks that Trump has often said he does not support white supremacists. Because certain people support Trump does not mean Trump supports them.
Family connections
Biden made a remark about Trump being in bed with Russia’s dictator.
Trump immediately denied any association and attacked Biden’s son, Hunter, for his connection to Ukrainian power bosses and tried to get Biden to admit his son made millions on the Ukrainian deals. Trump also chided Biden that this same son also worked closely with the Chinese.
Trump claimed Hunter Biden was dishonorably discharged from the Navy reserves. The Navy claims Biden received an “administrative” discharge. Perhaps the president peeked at the Navy files, but for public knowledge, Biden’s separation type is secret.
- As a vice-president’s son, the separation probably was “for the good of the service.” A person sans “pull” probably would have received, at best, a Bad Conduct Discharge (BCD). This based on the author’s experience in the U.S. military.
Will Trump retire gracefully?
Biden asked Trump if he will go quietly if Biden wins the election.
Trump failed to answer the question (as he has dodged it before) and said he will see what the ballots decide. Trump then proceeded to challenge the way mail in ballots are being handled, citing cases where unsolicited ballots have been mailed to people with the wrong name or at the wrong address. 3, 4
- Some states, such as Florida, only send ballots to registered voters who request them; these are known as “solicited” ballots, and Trump has stated he has no issue with solicited ballots.
Biden mis-spoke when he said that all ballots must be delivered by election day. Overseas voters, e.g., U.S. military and ex-pat ballots must be received not later than 10 days after the election day and must be postmarked on or before election day.
Still, given the controversy about the way the ballots are being handled, it seems likely that it could be mid-December before the election is validated.
The LA Times5, a paper that already decided Biden will win, foretells how Trump will fight to remain in office. The paper never considers that Trump will defeat Biden even with the Democrats’ ballot stuffing efforts.
Only two more “debates” to go. At this point, is there anyone who has not decided for whom to vote?
I heard that at least one debate will take questions from the audience.
I think that is a mistake. The parties can pack the audience and the moderators, if the questions are written and submitted, can selectively ask questions to suit their political position.
Are you still beating your wife?
Sources
1. Chris Wallace: https://tinyurl.com/z74ryzg
2. Biden and H1N1: https://tinyurl.com/yyfyq95n
3. The Hill: https://tinyurl.com/y7syk5gr
4. Washington Post: https://tinyurl.com/y4qhp6qw
5. LA Times: https://tinyurl.com/y9z8vx42
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.
