In Debates, Clinton Showed Why She Should Be President

Many early on recognized Donald Trump as being spectacularly unfit for the office of President of the United States.  Despite all his boasting, his business record is a mess and the fact that American banks will not make loans to him and his organization - hence his need for Russian money - ought to underscore his unfitness.  And that doesn't even get to the issue of his frightening temperament and uncontrolled narcissism.  The man is a train wreck and only a Republican Party too far gone in the process of hijacking by racists and Christofascists (see the prior post) could have nominated a man so lacking in so many ways.  Had a decent candidate been nominated, Hillary Clinton would face a harder task to win the election.  That said, an editorial in the Washington Post argues why Hillary has proven herself worthy of the presidency.  Here are highlights:

IF PRESENT trends continue — and we emphasize “if” — Hillary Clinton will be elected president on Nov. 8, in an ironic conclusion to a political year that supposedly belonged to outsiders and populists such as Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Why has Ms. Clinton, the “establishment” alternative facing the voters, wound up in the lead at this late date? According to much conventional wisdom, she is the beneficiary of structural factors, such as voter demographics, and of good fortune — in the form of the Republican Party’s spectacularly irresponsible choice of an incompetent nominee. 

Nevertheless, it is time to point out another reason Ms. Clinton is winning: She is earning it. She and her campaign have remained disciplined and even-keeled through tempests large and small — and through the tests of political communication and argument known as the presidential debates, both against Mr. Sanders and against Mr. Trump. It is not easy to stand on a stage for 90 minutes and parry words with an opponent, moderators and town-hall invitees; still less is it easy to do so while keeping one’s cool amid sleazy provocations and unpredictable insults from Mr. Trump. Through it all, Ms. Clinton has stayed focused on issues, laying out a program for the country that we don’t accept in every particular but that is well within the broad mainstream of plausible policy alternatives.

[S]he has kept her rhetoric civil and inclusive, in the face of an opponent bent on trashing the norms of democratic discourse. This is no mere style point. It is in a way substantive too, because this election has taken on importance beyond the already-high stakes for national policy; it has turned into a trial of our democratic culture. Certainly, Ms. Clinton has found ways to needle her opponent. But by preparing for the debates, using them to advance rational arguments and refraining from responding in kind to Mr. Trump’s lowest blows, Ms. Clinton has exemplified what’s still good about that culture. In fact, you might say she has reminded people of what’s good about “establishment” politicians . . . .

[W]e question the common assumption that any conventional Republican would be trouncing Ms. Clinton — especially because most of the Republicans usually cited were themselves trounced by the man now trailing the Democratic nominee. Ms. Clinton’s performance has apparently won her more appreciation from the electorate — a precious measure of political capital she will badly need if it does indeed fall to her to unite the country next year.

Trump's Repudiation of American Democracy

I have always viewed Trump as a clear and present danger to America ever since he launched his narcissism driven campaign.  Last night he confirmed it for all to see when he refused to confirm that he would aide by the election results, win or lose.  His refusal should come as no surprise give the narcissistic personality disorder he seemingly suffers from.  A disorder exhibited by many of history's worse tyrants, including Hitler, Stalin - and perhaps Vladimir Putin.  Everything is ALWAYS about them, they are never wrong, and they cannot handle that people might reject them and/or their dangerous agenda.  The main editorial in the Washington Post sums up Trump's self-centered, ego driven existence and the threat that he (and some of his insane supporters) poses to the country.  Here are highlights:

DONALD TRUMP showed a bit more self-control in the third and final presidential debate Wednesday night than he had in the previous two. His back and forth with Hillary Clinton was more substantive, thanks in part to firm guidance from moderator Chris Wallace. But all of that was overshadowed by Mr. Trump’s breathtaking refusal to say that he will accept the results of the election.

“I will look at it at the time,” he said. “The media is so dishonest and so corrupt . . . they poison the minds of the voters . . . She should never have been allowed to run for the presidency.”

Ms. Clinton rightly called his stance a “horrifying” repudiation of U.S. democracy. Respecting the will of the voters has since the end of the Civil War allowed for a peaceful transition of power that has made this country the envy of the world.

Next to that, policy issues seem small. Yet the policy discussion was clarifying also, exposing as it did Mr. Trump’s ignorance of — or is it distaste for? — facts and policy. He again insisted that the North American Free Trade Agreement has sucked jobs from the country, when economists have found otherwise. He indicated the debt would take care of itself under his economic plan because “we will have created a tremendous economic machine,” which is pure snake oil. 

In another striking moment, Mr. Trump denied that the Russian government has been meddling in this election, refusing to accept the judgment of the country’s intelligence community. Ms. Clinton said “the most important question” was whether Mr. Trump would acknowledge Moscow’s interference. Mr. Trump at first declined to do so, saying he doubted the reports by U.S. intelligence agencies. He avoided any criticism of Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin, repeatedly insisting it would be “good” to get along with Russia, with no mention of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other actions that have made getting along difficult.

When Mr. Wallace turned to the scandals that have dominated the past month, Mr. Trump incorrectly insisted that the women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct have been “debunked.”

These are gaps that would have been probed and tested in a normal campaign. They fade to the status of trivia in the face of an opponent who will not accept the basic rules of American democracy.

The man is very, very dangerous and the spineless leadership of what's left of the GOP must act decisively to rein this Frankenstein monster in under control.

Trump's Lewd Conversation About Women in 2005

As readers have no doubt gathered by now, I find nothing redeeming in Donald Trump who in many ways symbolizes what is wrong with far too many American males: he is a totally self-absorbed sexist pig who cares for no one and nothing other than himself.  What I find startling as  the father of two daughters myself is how little he values women (does this include his own daughters?) and sees them merely as objects to be pursued sexually, provided, of course, they meet his standards of beauty. Some had speculated that Trump might seek to bring up Bill Clinton's infidelities in tomorrow night's debate, but a newly released tape that shows Trump seeking to have sex with a married woman just months after his marriage to his current wife may chasten him on that front.  It also ought to convince women that Trump, despite his unusual and disingenuous apology, is the last man any self-respecting woman should vote for.  As for those Republicans who delude themselves that Trump is/will be capable of self-control, that myth should be totally put to rest.  The Washington Post looks at the bomb shell.  Here are article highlights:

Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone, saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.

The video captures Trump talking with Billy Bush, then of “Access Hollywood,”on a bus with the show’s name written across the side. They were arriving on the set of “Days of Our Lives” to tape a segment about Trump’s cameo on the soap opera.

Late Friday night, following sharp criticism by Republican leaders, Trump issued a short video statement saying, “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.” But he also called the revelation “a distraction from the issues we are facing today.” He said that his “foolish” words are much different than the words and actions of Bill Clinton, whom he accused of abusing women, and Hillary Clinton, whom he accused of having “bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.”

In that audio, Trump discusses a failed attempt to seduce a woman, whose full name is not given in the video.

“I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it,” Trump is heard saying. It was unclear when the events he was describing took place. The tape was recorded several months after he married his third wife, Melania.

“Whoa,” another voice said.  “I did try and f--- her. She was married,” Trump says.

Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s. “Grab them by the p---y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

Trump was also criticized by members of his own party. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who said he is “sickened” by Trump’s comments, said the Republican presidential candidate will no longer appear with him at a campaign event in Wisconsin on Saturday.

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Trump critic, said in a statement: “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.”

Paul Ryan may be distancing himself from Trump for the moment, but the man has totally prostituted himself from Trump and made me have an even lower opinion of hi, if that is possible. Can you imagine what Trump would see himself free to do as president?   That thought is frightening. 

How the Clinton-Trump Race Got Close

With the now seemingly close election contest between Hillary Clinton making me at times consider formalizing my dual citizenship with Honduras so that the husband and I could move to and purchase property in Roatan in the Bay Islands, I keep asking myself, "what is wrong with Americans and why isn't Clinton killing Trump."  A column in the New York Times looks at the question and proposes an answers and places much of the blame on a complicit media. A media that much like the German media as Hitler came to power helped normalize ugliness and hatred until it was too late.  Then these same media types found themselves to be the among the first targeted for silencing.  Why can't Americans learn from history?  Here are column highlights:

Monday’s presidential debate was a blowout, surely the most one-sided confrontation in American political history. Hillary Clinton was knowledgeable, unflappable and — dare we say it? — likable. Donald Trump was ignorant, thin-skinned and boorish.

Yet on the eve of the debate, polls showed a close race. How was that possible?

After all, the candidates we saw Monday night were the same people they’ve been all along. Mrs. Clinton’s grace and even humor under pressure were fully apparent during last year’s Benghazi hearing. Mr. Trump’s whiny braggadocio has been obvious every time he opens his mouth without reading from a teleprompter

So how could someone like Mr. Trump have been in striking position for the White House?

Part of the answer is that a lot more Americans than we’d like to imagine are white nationalists at heart. Indeed, implicit appeals to racial hostility have long been at the core of Republican strategy; Mr. Trump became the G.O.P. nominee by saying outright what his opponents tried to convey with dog whistles.

If he loses, Republicans will claim that he was some kind of outlier, showing nothing about the nature of their party. He isn’t.

But while racially motivated voters are a bigger minority than we’d like to think, they are a minority. And as recently as August Mrs. Clinton held a commanding lead. Then her polls went into a swoon.

What happened? Did she make some huge campaign blunders?

I don’t think so. As I’ve written before, she got Gored. That is, like Al Gore in 2000, she ran into a buzz saw of adversarial reporting from the mainstream media, which treated relatively minor missteps as major scandals, and invented additional scandals out of thin air.

Meanwhile, her opponent’s genuine scandals and various grotesqueries were downplayed or whitewashed; but as Jonathan Chait of New York magazine says, the normalization of Donald Trump was probably less important than the abnormalization of Hillary Clinton.

This media onslaught started with an Associated Press report on the Clinton Foundation, which roughly coincided with the beginning of Mrs. Clinton’s poll slide. . . . . As it happened, it failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing — but nonetheless wrote the report as if it had. And this was the beginning of an extraordinary series of hostile news stories about how various aspects of Mrs. Clinton’s life “raise questions” or “cast shadows,” conveying an impression of terrible things without saying anything that could be refuted.

The culmination of this process came with the infamous Matt Lauer-moderated forum, which might be briefly summarized as “Emails, emails, emails; yes, Mr. Trump, whatever you say, Mr. Trump.”

I still don’t fully understand this hostility, which wasn’t ideological. Instead, it had the feel of the cool kids in high school jeering at the class nerd. Sexism was surely involved but may not have been central, since the same thing happened to Mr. Gore.

Then came the debate itself, which was almost unspinnable. . . . . tens of millions of Americans saw the candidates in action, directly, without a media filter. For many, the revelation wasn’t Mr. Trump’s performance, but Mrs. Clinton’s: The woman they saw bore little resemblance to the cold, joyless drone they’d been told to expect.

How much will it matter? My guess — but I could very well be completely wrong — is that it will matter a lot. Hard-core Trump supporters won’t be swayed. But voters who had been planning to stay home or, what amounts to the same thing, vote for a minor-party candidate rather than choose between the racist and the she-devil may now realize that they were misinformed. If so, it will be Mrs. Clinton’s bravura performance, under incredible pressure, that turned the tide.

But things should never have gotten to this point, where so much depended on defying media expectations over the course of an hour and a half. And those who helped bring us here should engage in some serious soul-searching.

If democracy should fall in America, irresponsible journalist will certainly have played a major role in helping it happen.

Former Defense Department and CIA Officials Slam Trump

The previous post noted how Hitler's rise to power was aided by sycophants who thought they could control him and/or by those who put personal advancement ahead of the best interests of the nation. Some of the later ended up losing their lives when Hitler turned on them and others lost everything when Germany was crushed in defeat.  Thankfully, some of America's career defense and intelligence are not ready to sell out the nation for a few pieces of silver and put the interests of the nation first.  A column in the Washington Post by a former undersecretary of defense for intelligence from 2011 to 2015 and assistant secretary of defense for special operations from 2007 to 2011, and former deputy director of the CIA underscores why Donald Trump is unfit for the office of the presidency and the danger that he poses for America.  Here are excerpts:

Donald Trump showed again during Monday’s presidential debate the many ways in which he is unfit to be president. But nowhere did he reveal himself to be as temperamentally unfit, unserious, unprepared and incoherent as he did on the topic of national security.

Trump continued to question the global alliance system that has served U.S. national security interests so well since World War II. He continues to see our relationships with our closest allies and partners solely in terms of cost — who is paying how much of the bill. He does not see all the benefits that have accrued to the United States from this system, including the stability of Europe and East Asia that has made this a more secure and prosperous nation.

Trump spoke off the cuff about the most important responsibility of our commander in chief: U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Apparently unaware of the meaning of the words, he first said he believed in “no first use” of nuclear weapons, then contradicted himself by saying he would keep his options open as president. One of us (Michael Vickers) had oversight for U.S. nuclear weapons policy during the George W. Bush administration, and we can say unequivocally that absolute clarity is critical to the strength of our nuclear deterrent. And these comments come on top of Trump’s already-reckless pattern of remarks on allowing more countries to obtain nuclear weapons and the potential scenarios in which he would consider using such weapons.

Trump failed to articulate a plan to defeat the Islamic State, and he baldly lied about initially opposing the Iraq War. He continued his silly argument that to talk about his plan would give away secrets to the enemy. Nonsense. As two people who fought terrorists for almost two decades, we can assure Trump that offering the broad outlines of a policy gives nothing away. 

Trump has repeatedly claimed on the campaign trail, as he did again Monday night, that the United States would have prevented the emergence of the Islamic State if we had “taken the oil” in the aftermath of the Iraq War. Trump is apparently unaware that the terrorist group got its oil from fields in Syria, not Iraq. Trump likewise dubiously asserted that had the United States maintained 10,000 troops in Iraq after 2011 — against the wishes of the Iraqi government — it would have prevented the Islamic State from becoming a threat. Again, Trump is seemingly unaware of the facts. The Islamic State’s most rapid growth occurred when it crossed the border into Syria, where most of its forces remain today.

And Trump was not serious when he was discussing one of the most significant threats of our time: cyber. In discussing Russia’s possible involvement in the recent hack of the Democratic National Committee, he posited that a 400-pound person sitting on a bed could have been responsible. It is highly unlikely that a lone hacker conducted this attack. Trump did not want to admit that the most likely culprit was Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump actually encouraged to conduct cyber espionage against his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

As bad as he was on the issues, Trump was even worse on temperament and style. He was clearly not prepared for the debate, rambling through answers with many digressions that had nothing to do with what he was asked or even the point he was trying to make. 

If Donald Trump thinks preparation is overrated and that a seat-of-the-pants approach makes sense for the most important debate of his life, why do we think he would treat meetings in the White House Situation Room any differently?

Trump is not only a threat to America but to the world at large.  No wonder so many of America's allies are worried about the outcome of November's election.  I find the thought of Trump in the White House nothing short of terrifying.

Donald Trump - Out of His Depth

As the day has gone on, the analysis of the results of last night's presidential debate (outside of rigged online polls - as will be discussed in another post) has been increasingly brutal against Donald Trump.  Many of those condemning Trump's poor, unprepared and hubris filled performance are many Republicans and conservative pundits and columnists.  One such columnist is Michael Gerson, President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006, as a senior policy advisor from 2000 through June 2006, who is scathing in his critique of Trump.  Here are column excerpts:

During the past political year, life has imitated professional wrestling. Those expecting such antics from Donald Trump during the first presidential debate were not disappointed. When confronted with his claim that global warming was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, Trump replied, “I did not [say it].” He did. When Trump’s claim that he could not release his tax returns because of an IRS audit was exposed as false, he still insisted on it. When charged with saying that he could personally negotiate down the national debt, he said this was “wrong.” The charge was right. When Trump’s transparently deceptive claim to be an early opponent of the Iraq War was debunked, he doubled down in a babbling defense citing Sean Hannity as the ultimate arbiter.

It is not surprising that Trump inhabits his own factual universe, in which truth is determined by usefulness and lies become credible through repetition. What made the first presidential debate extraordinary — really, unprecedented — was not the charges that Trump denied, but the ones he confirmed.

When Hillary Clinton claimed he didn’t pay any federal income taxes in a couple of years, Trump said: “That makes me smart.” When Clinton accused Trump of defrauding a contractor out of money he was owed, Trump responded: “Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work.” When Clinton criticized Trump for casual misogyny and for calling women “pigs,” Trump brought up Rosie O’Donnell and said, “She deserves it.” When Clinton recalled a Justice Department lawsuit against Trump alleging housing discrimination, he dismissed it as “just one of those things.”

When Clinton attacked Trump for coddling the Russians, Trump attempted to excuse them of hacking, shifting the blame toward obese computer geeks.

During the debate, the points scored against Trump were damaging. But the points he ceded would disqualify any normal politician, in any normal presidential year.

Trump has made some political gains over the past few weeks through greater discipline — speeches from teleprompters, carefully selected media interviews, no news conferences, a Twitter account in the hands of others. But the candidate has internalized none of this. He might as well have sung “I Gotta Be Me” as his opening statement in the debate. It was Trump unplugged and often unhinged.

Rhetorically, Trump drove a high-speed train filled with fireworks into a nuclear power plant. He was self-absorbed, prickly, defensive, interrupting, baited by every charge yet unprepared to refute them. During his share of a 90-minute debate, he was horribly out of his depth, incapable of stringing together a coherent three-sentence case. The postmodern quality of Trump’s appeal culminated in an unbalanced rant claiming, “I also have a much better temperament than she has” — an assertion greeted by audience laughter.

It should now be clear to Republicans: Vanity is his strategy.

Trump’s defenders will charge his critics with elitism. The great public, it is argued, gets Trump in a way that the commenting class does not. But this claim is now fully exposed. The expectation of rationality is not elitism. Coherence is not elitism. Knowledge is not elitism. Honoring character is not elitism. And those who claim this are debasing themselves, their party and their country. 

Trump Bombs at First Debate, Shows Ugly Self

While some folks we know did not watch last night's presidential debate - some said it was too painful to watch, especially Donald Trump's behavior - the husband and I watched every minute of it. Overall, I thought Hillary Clinton was the clear winner, which seems to be the majority view, but more on that below.  Perhaps the most laughable/frightening moment was when Trump said he thought his temperament - that of a petulant first grader -  best qualified him for the presidency.   Trump surrogates had claimed that he had prepared for the debate "in his own way" and had criticized Clinton for the time she took to prepare.  The result?  Trump came across clueless and unprepared on many points and reverted back to some of his tried and true lies. The problem for Trump is that what works at rallies filled with his demented followers does not work on an internationally viewed one on one debate. The following is a sampling of some of the critiques of last nights debate.  First, the liberal perspective from Jonathan Capehart from the Washington Post:

For 90 minutes, we watched one candidate for president display the seriousness the office demands while the other did what was once unthinkable: show up unprepared for a globally televised job interview. . . . . Trump brought the vaudeville shtick that worked for him in the primaries to the main stage and bombed.

Trump’s performance was the rhetorical equivalent of hurling garbage on the lawn. A question about x would lead to mentions of y, z and whatever else came to mind. For instance, a response about Hillary Clinton’s emails led to a mention about the sorry state of New York’s LaGuardia Airport. And then there were the gasp-worthy moments that would sink any other presidential aspirant.

Clinton said the only time Trump’s tax returns were seen was when he sought a casino license. “[T]hey showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax,” the Democratic nominee charged. Trump’s response? “That makes me smart.” Neither average Americans nor the Clintons (who have released more than three decades of tax returns) could get away with that.

If there was one undeniable truth spoken by Clinton at the debate, it came in response to Trump’s dig at her for “stay[ing] home” last week. “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And, yes, I did,” Clinton said. “And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president.” Kaboom.

On the conservative side from the Post, Jennifer Rubin, until this year typically an apologist for the GOP, let loose on Trump as well:

[L]like Super Bowl games to which the Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump debate was frequently compared, it was not as competitive as one might have imagined. Clinton came away the winner, accomplishing what she set out to do.

She wasn’t warm and fuzzy, but she was calm, cool and in command of her facts. She hit more than once his “Trumped up trickled down” tax plan, a winner with her supporters. She made a pitch for gun control, extolled African American families and urged anti-bias training for police. She prodded Trump to agree that we should take guns away from people on the no-fly list. (The National Rifle Association won’t be pleased.) She slammed Trump when he accused her of preparing for the debate. . . . . she reamed him for his statements on nuclear weapons and willingness to allow other countries to get the bomb.

Trump was soon back to classic Trump —  inveighing  against trade and making bizarre comments. . . . He incorrectly stated that “stop and frisk” had not been ruled unconstitutional. At times he seemed to babble, running out of material. He still has not bothered to flesh out proposals or to broaden his grasp of issues. His meandering answer on first use of nuclear weapons suggested he had no idea what the issue was. Trump blundered accusing Clinton of lacking stamina, giving her an opportunity to boast of her own travels and recount his insults against women.

His worst moments came as he continued to defend raising the birther issue and claimed credit for prompting President Obama to produce his birth certificate. Clinton laid into him, slamming him for starting his political career by trying to de-legitimize the first African American president. “A racist lie” is what she called it. She raised the lawsuit from the 1970s for housing discrimination. 

Trump needed to conceal his temper, avoid queries on his taxes and dalliance with birtherism, and appear ready to be president. He didn’t. . . . . The first debate win goes to Clinton.

Going over to the arguably less "liberal" Politico, the "insider" verdict on Trump's loss of the debate was similar. Here are highlights of that:

Score round 1 for Hillary Clinton.  That’s according to The POLITICO Caucus — a panel of swing-state activists, strategists and operatives who watched the first debate here Monday night. The insiders’ bipartisan verdict: Clinton dispatched Donald Trump in their first of three nationally televised meetings.

Overall, roughly 80 percent of insiders — with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans responding to the post-debate survey — said Clinton did the better job at the debate, including 99 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans.

Democrats said Clinton was prepared and succeeded in provoking Trump — who began the debate speaking so quietly the audio engineers struggled to raise his volume to a comparable level in the debate hall but quickly became more animated in the face of Clinton’s attacks.

“No contest,” said an Iowa Democrat — who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously. “Trump held it together for 16 minutes and fell apart.”

Among Republicans, the tally was closer — but that speaks to a divided party as much as actual ambivalence about which candidate performed better on Monday night.

“Trump was an embarrassment,” an Iowa Republican said. “I'd hate to be the guy in the spin room lying about how Trump won the debate.”

“It wasn't close,” a Virginia Republican added. “Sure, our tribal politics will force it to seem somewhat close, but even the most committed of Trump supporters know, deep down, that did not go well.”

The vast majority of all insiders, 88 percent, said Clinton met expectations going into Monday night. That includes nearly three-quarters of Republicans: One Florida Republican called Clinton “calm in the face of an insane person.”

“Put plainly: he failed the presidential test,” a Virginia Republican added. “And hiding out on Fox News isn't going to fix it for him.”

The views at the New York Times were similar, even among more conservative columnists.  Here is a sample from one column:

Trump lost. Really, I think we can work under the assumption that when a candidate is accused of cheering for the housing crisis, it’s not a good plan to reply: “That’s called business, by the way.”

There had been some speculation that all Trump needed to do was speak in complete sentences to beat expectations, and if that was the bar, the man did great. When Hillary Clinton suggested he might be withholding his federal returns because he never paid any taxes, he responded: “That makes me smart.” Complete sentence.

There’s something terrifying in the way Trump can’t admit error, even in a case where the incorrect statement in question has become world-famous. There are undoubtedly people in Chad who know that Trump supported the invasion of Iraq before it happened. But when it came up on Monday, he denied it once again, arguing that his much-quoted interview on “The Howard Stern Show” was something else entirely:

Both of these candidates have a lot of baggage and Clinton got past her email burden by admitting she was wrong and saying she was sorry. Not the perfect apology, but it got her through the night.

Trump, for his part, could have anticipated that the business of calling women pigs, slobs and dogs would come up. The correct answer, as his advisers undoubtedly hinted, was to say he regretted it, and hoped he’d be a better example for his 10-year-old son. His actual response was to: 1) Claim that nobody likes Rosie O’Donnell; 2) Congratulate himself for not saying “something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family"; and 3) Point out that the polls are looking good.

People tuned in to see Trump and he didn’t disappoint. Not every politician would respond to a comment about how he got his start in business with $14 million in family money with: “My father gave me a very small loan.”

Remember when we made fun of Mitt Romney for his privileged background? Hahahahaha.

Quotes of the Day: Andrew Sullivan Live Blogging

Watching the presidential debate is painful in many ways, not the least of which is Donald Trump's lies and Texas sized bull shit.  Sadly, Trump's supporters are as delusional as he is and as immune from being tethered to objective reality as The Donald himself.   Andrew Sullivan is live blogging the debates and here are some reflections.  Here is a sampling:

9:50 p.m. What he has just said in a presidential debate is indistinguishable from what a drunk at a bar might say before he is thrown out. It’s incredible to me that this ranting, incoherent bigot is actually a nominee of a major party in the U.S.

9:47 p.m. Trump’s response to the racial divide question is simply to tout his endorsement from the police union. Then he pivots to the notion that inner city violence is caused by illegal immigrants. His answer on stop and frisk is an argument against the constitution. He has contempt for the Constitution because it might actually impede him from doing what he wants.

 

9:43 p.m. It’s clear that Trump has no idea what a debate is and has never actually debated an equal. He rants and then shouts over and interrupts his debate partner. This is the performance of a tyrant – someone utterly unsuited to the give and take and reasoned debate that’s integral – essential– to a liberal democracy.

9:42 p.m. I have to say that Clinton’s spiel on Trump’s foul business record was effective. And what’s up with his nose? Why is he constantly sniffing?

9:40 p.m. A little fact-checking:

 Follow

Donald J. Trump 

✔@realDonaldTrump

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

2:15 PM - 6 Nov 2012

 

9:30 p.m. He’s now full bonkers – attacking the Federal Reserve. And then repeating the absurd lie that he cannot release his tax returns because of an audit. He’s just doubling down on the bullshit. If this performance works, it’s the end of any kind of rational discourse in a liberal democracy.

9:16 p.m. Clinton is doing far better than I anticipated. And he’s flailing – and gives us the first interruption.

9:12 p.m. A terrific response from Clinton on “trumped-up trickle down economics.” And her attempt to contrast her more modest upbringing with Trump’s astonishing privilege. Trump is responding with slogans. And suddenly it’s not “Crooked Hillary”, it’s Secretary Clinton. So he switches tactics and plays his strong card – that he is the new thing and Clinton has been around for ever.

He has no answer on how to bring manufacturing jobs back.

Why Debate Moderators Must Fact Check Candidates

As numerous prior posts have argued, a major role of the mainstream media is to not only report the news but also to expose outright lies and deceit.  Despite this critical role of the media, the head of the Commission on Presidential Debates has stated that he thinks that presidential moderators shouldn't try to fact-check the candidates.  Stated another way, he advocates for candidates to being free to live without any restraint.  In my view, the man needs to be fired and replaced with someone who doesn't have his head up his ass.   A piece in the Washington Post looks at this issue  and the idiocy of not fact checking candidates when confronted with a pathological liar like Donald Trump. Here are highlights:

There are hard questions in life. . . . . What isn't hard, though, is what the unemployment rate is. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the answer to that every month.

Despite that, the head of the Commission on Presidential Debates thinks that this is the kind of issue that moderators shouldn't try to fact-check the candidates on. "If you and I have different sources of information," she asked CNN's Brian Stelter, "does your source about the unemployment rate agree with my source?"

The problem is, of course, that there aren't different sources of information about the unemployment rate any more than there are different sources of information about what two plus two equals. There's the BLS, and then there are conspiracy theorists. But that's a lot different from saying, as Trump does, that the unemployment rate is "really" 23 percent or 42 percent or another made-up number. Even the broadest possible definition of under- and unemployment — people who can't find work, people who have given up looking for work, people who "should" be working but for whatever reason aren't, and people who can only find part-time work — wouldn't even be half as much as what Trump is saying. The fact — there's that word again — is that Donald Trump has a penchant for saying things that are false. He's lied about opposing the Iraq War from the beginning, suggested that vaccines cause autism, said that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, claimed that "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey were cheering on 9/11, insinuated that Ted Cruz's father had something to do with the JFK assassination, and, of course,questioned whether President Obama was really born in the United States — continuing to do so even after Obama released his birth certificate. It isn't partisan to point out that none of these are true. Nor is it to say that the unemployment rate isn't worse than it was during the Great Depression. 

Letting untruths go unchallenged is, though. It's implicitly taking sides against reality.

Debate Prediction - Donald Trump's Lying Game

One of the most maddening thing about the 2016 election cycle is the failure of the news media to accurately report on the magnitude of the lies Donald Trump engages in daily.  The danger for the nation is that by not accurately reporting on the fact that Trump lies many times more than Clinton and that in the quest of appearing unbiased, the media has given Trump a free pass over and over again.   True, most of Trump's hard core base care nothing about the man's dishonesty so long as his statements and demagoguery play to their racial and social prejudices.  But after allowing - indeed assisting - America to go to war in Iraq based on lies that failed to be exposed and challenged, one would think that the mainstream media would have learned a lesson.  Monday night's first presidential debate will be a test of whether the media puts reporting the truth and exposing lies still matters or whether much of the media will prove to be Trump sycophants.  A column in the New York Times looks at this dangerous issue.  Here are highlights:

Here’s what we can be fairly sure will happen in Monday’s presidential debate: Donald Trump will lie repeatedly and grotesquely, on a variety of subjects. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton might say a couple of untrue things. Or she might not.

Here’s what we don’t know: Will the moderators step in when Mr. Trump delivers one of his well-known, often reiterated falsehoods? If he claims, yet again, to have opposed the Iraq war from the beginning — which he didn’t — will he be called on it? If he claims to have renounced birtherism years ago, will the moderators note that he was still at it just a few months ago?  . . . . .  If he says one more time that America is the world’s most highly taxed country — which it isn’t — will anyone other than Mrs. Clinton say that it isn’t? And will media coverage after the debate convey the asymmetry of what went down?

[A]t this point we have long track records for both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton; thanks to nonpartisan fact-checking operations like PolitiFact, we can even quantify the difference.

PolitiFact has examined 258 Trump statements and 255 Clinton statements and classified them on a scale ranging from “True” to “Pants on Fire.” One might quibble with some of the judgments, but they’re overwhelmingly in the ballpark. And they show two candidates living in different moral universes when it comes to truth-telling. Mr. Trump had 48 Pants on Fire ratings, Mrs. Clinton just six; the G.O.P. nominee had 89 False ratings, the Democrat 27.

Unless one candidate has a nervous breakdown or a religious conversion in the next few days, the debate will follow similar lines. So how should it be reported? . . . What I suggest is that reporters and news organizations treat time and attention span as a sort of capital budget that must be allocated across coverage.

And if the debate looks anything like the campaign so far, we know what that will mean: a news analysis that devotes at least five times as much space to Mr. Trump’s falsehoods as to Mrs. Clinton’s.

If your reaction is, “Oh, they can’t do that — it would look like partisan bias,” you have just demonstrated the huge problem with news coverage during this election. For I am not calling on the news media to take a side; I’m just calling on it to report what is actually happening, without regard for party. In fact, any reporting that doesn’t accurately reflect the huge honesty gap between the candidates amounts to misleading readers, giving them a distorted picture that favors the biggest liar.

Yet there are, of course, intense pressures on the news media to engage in that distortion. Point out a Trump lie and you will get some pretty amazing mail — and if we set aside the attacks on your race or ethnic group, accusations that you are a traitor, etc., most of it will declare that you are being a bad journalist because you don’t criticize both candidates equally.

One all-too-common response to such attacks involves abdicating responsibility for fact-checking entirely, and replacing it with theater criticism. . . . . news reporting should tell the public what really happened, not be devoted to speculation about how other people might react to what happened.

Now, what will I say if Mr. Trump lies less than I predict and Mrs. Clinton more? That’s easy: Tell it like it is. But don’t grade on a curve. If Mr. Trump lies only three times as much as Mrs. Clinton, the main story should still be that he lied a lot more than she did, not that he wasn’t quite as bad as expected.

Again, I’m not calling on the news media to take sides; journalists should simply do their job, which is to report the facts. It may not be easy — but doing the right thing rarely is.

GOP Insiders: Trump Can't Win

I know that one should not get cocky until after the election results are in, but as a former Republican who is disgusted with what the GOP has become, I can't help but take some glee in the panic and despair raking GOP insiders over what Donald Trump.    My favorite comment comes from an Iowa Republican: "'Trump is under performing so comprehensively...it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of ‘Death to America’'"  Trump is the culmination of the GOP's selling of its soul to Christofascists, white supremacists, and other misogynists for the last several decades while seeking short term gain with no thought of the cancer they were injecting into the party long term.  Politico looks at the desperation that seems to be growing.  Here are excerpts:

Republican insiders are more convinced than Democrats that Donald Trump is so far behind Hillary Clinton that he can't win in November.
 Roughly half of Republican members of The POLITICO Caucus — activists, strategists and operatives in 11 swing states — believe that Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes is basically shut off after another week in which the GOP nominee appears to have ceded ground in national and most battleground state polls.

Democrats, however, aren’t breaking out the champagne just yet. Seventy-two percent of Democratic insiders said despite Clinton’s clear advantage at this stage of the race, the presidential election isn’t effectively over. . . “We are in a great place,” added a Florida Democrat, “but nothing is over 89 days out, particularly with Clinton's trust issues.”

GOP insiders were virtually split, however: 49 percent said the race was already effectively over, while 51 percent said that it wasn’t.

“While it's true that previous candidates have come back from greater deficits to win, it won't happen in 2016. The electorate is far more base-driven, with fewer persuadables,” said an Iowa Republican. “Trump is under performing so comprehensively across states and demographics it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of ‘Death to America!’

“Trump has failed to demonstrate he has a plan and path to 270” electoral votes, added a Wisconsin Republican. “Considering the disadvantage a GOP candidate starts with, the work in key targeted states like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania has to be error-free. There is no evidence that Trump has done that or that he has much of a ground game to begin with.”

Slightly fewer than half of Republican Caucus panelists, 47 percent, said Trump is right to suggest his participation could hinge on the dates, times, identities of the moderators and other details — while 53 percent said Trump is making a mistake by not committing to the debates without conditions.

“The old adage is you cannot win an election through debates, but you can lose them. Donald Trump, as with anything, is the exception to this rule,” said an Iowa Republican. “He has GOT to win the debates or he will lose. Forfeiture is not an option. Last time he skipped a debate, he lost the Iowa caucuses.”

Other Republicans agreed with the overwhelming majority of Democrats, 85 percent, who said threatening to hold out of the debates was a mistake. One Michigan Republican said Trump “looks petty and scared.” Two Florida insiders — one from each party — called the GOP nominee “chickens---t.”

Added an Iowa Republican: “Someone has failed to teach Trump the basics of candidate school. He doesn't understand that he's no longer negotiating with [RNC chair] Reince [Priebus] and a single cable network. This is an entirely different thing. And leaving an empty chair against Hillary would be a complete disaster. He would look weak and scared and like a loser, which he would never allow around his brand. It would literally put a wooden stake in the heart of his entire campaign.”

Last Night's Democratic Debate - Did Hillary Win?

Unfortunately, I missed last nights' debate since the husband and I were over in Norfolk visiting one of my daughters and our new grandson - he decided to be born 8 weeks early, but fortunately both mother and child are doing well.  Thus, I have to rely on accounts of others as to what transpired during last night's Democrat presidential debate.  One piece in the Washington Post views Hillary Clinton as the winner.  Here are highlights:

WinnersHillary Clinton: Clinton didn't knock Sanders out. But she definitely won on points. She was ready when Sanders came at her on her judgment for voting for the war in Iraq, noting that the voters of New York as well as President Obama trusted her judgment. She noted, powerfully, that women's rights had not come up nearly enough in these debates and that Sanders had sought to minimize them as an issue when Donald Trump made his comments about abortion. (Sidenote: That was Clinton's best moment of the night, reminding people watching that her campaign to be the first female presidential nominee for a major party was both historic and unique.)

Most importantly, Clinton drove home -- again and again -- the idea that Sanders talked a good game but couldn't back it up. "It's easy to diagnose the problem," she said at one point. "It's harder to do something about the problem." That's her broader argument in this race -- what Sanders says sounds nice but can't be done -- and she did yeoman's work in making sure anyone watching understood that.

No, she wasn't perfect in the Brooklyn debate. Clinton continues to be evasive and unconvincing when it comes to her refusal to release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. The idea that the Republicans running for president need to release any paid speeches they gave before Clinton will do the same is a cop out. Period.

But, Clinton came into the debate ahead in New York and the race more broadly.  Nothing that happened on Thursday night will change that.

LosersBernie Sanders: Let's start with what Sanders did well in the Brooklyn debate: He effectively portrayed himself as the candidate of big ideas and Clinton as a seeker of half-measures, full of caution. And, if you came into this debate liking Sanders, you left it loving him.

Now, to what he did wrong: The sarcasm.  He was dismissive to the point of danger, politically speaking, on a number of occasions.

Regardless of the reason, Sanders isn't going to win over many converts with that sort of approach to Clinton. And, make no mistake, that is what he needs to do going forward. If the race continues on as it has to date, Clinton will be the nominee. It might not be as smooth a path as she and her team imagined but she will win unless Sanders can start changing hearts and minds. Sarcasm isn't the way to do that.

Candidly, I am getting tired of Sanders' tone and sarcasm - and even more tired of some his followers who seem set on sabotaging Clinton and putting a Republican in the White House out of spite - something that would be a total disaster, especially if the believe in what Sanders is peddling.  Some are becoming as stupid and mindless as Trump supporters, in my view.