Presidential Debates: 9/26/16

I have strong memories of the 1960 Presidential debates, when the telegenic Kennedy outshone Richard Nixon and his five o'clock shadow.  I don't think these debates have much value in helping to decide for whom to vote, nor do I do I think the Libertarian and Green Party candidates should have been left out simply because they failed to poll some arbitrary number.  And though I don't think we need any more proof that Trump is a sleazy con man and serial dissembler, we got it anyway last night.

1. Yes, he was sued for discrimination against African-Americans in the housing market, but then, as he said, so were a lot of other people (as though that makes it okay).

2. Yes, he has called women "pigs" but some of them, especially Rosie O'Donnell, deserved it. When he was asked why he thought Clinton did not "look like a President" he sidestepped the question and said he thought she did not have the stamina.

3.  Trump claimed he convinced Obama to produce his birth certificate but offered no reason why he continued for another five years after it was produced it to claim that Obama was not American-born.

4.  He continues to state that if you walk down the street in an African-American neighborhood you will be shot and says we need "law and order" without any description of what that means.  He did not respond to Clinton's suggestion that we improve our justice system and limit incarceration.

5.  He says "hundreds, thousands" of manufacturers are relocating to other countries and we should bring them back, though he has no idea how to accomplish that other than keeping them from leaving in the first place, though he doesn't know how to do that either.

And so on.  I did like the TV format of almost always showing both candidates, no matter who was speaking, so we got to see Trump constantly muttering about everything Clinton said and were spared shots of the moderator and the audience.  The debate was unfortunately very short on specifics, though Clinton did mention college debt and free tuition, as well as equal pay for equal work, a higher minimum wage and family leave, while Trump blustered about Mexico and China, offering only to cut regulations so that businesses could pollute as much as they wanted to .

Gary Johnson: Inside City Hall with Errol Louis

Libertarian candidate for President Gary Johnson appeared Friday on Errol Louis's excellent political show "Inside City Hall", on NY1.  I'm finding Johnson refreshing, as Trump and Clinton, one demagogic and the other aloof, are less and less appealing.  Johnson differs from both major candidates in his support for free trade and his skepticism about the effectiveness and cost of foreign adventures, as we demonstrate over and over how little we have learned from Vietnam.  Unfortunately we have a Committee on Presidential Debates that is staffed by Republicans and Democrats and that insists, quite arbitrarily, that a candidate has to have 15% support in polls to be included in the debates, essentially ensuring that few dissident voices will be heard. (If you are wondering whatever happened to the "equal time" FCC rule:  it was abandoned in 1960 and abolished in 1983).

When Louis asked about Johnson's position on regime change -- Johnson said regime changes supported by us have never been effective -- Louis suggested maybe this was not true in Latin America.  They did not have time for an in-depth discussion of  this subject, unfortunately,  but the dynamics in Latin America have been different, as our support for right-wing dictators such as Batista in Cuba have led to revolutions such as Castro's.  Our support for Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile and many others has been good, perhaps, for United Fruit but seldom, if ever, for the indigenous populations (you can look it up).

Johnson supports legalization of marijuana and when Morris pointed out that people do indeed have problems with the drug Johnson correctly pointed out that making those people criminals and throwing them in jail does not help matters, especially when people of color receive a disproportionate amount of jail time. Some of us have problems with alcohol, too, but Prohibition did not work either.

There were other things that Louis and Johnson did not have time to discuss, especially healthcare., but, in any case, Johnson has a point of view intelligently different from the two major parties and, with his emphasis on choice and inclusion, certainly deserves a hearing.

TV Log

John Stossel last week had on his show on the Fox business network Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and vice-presidential candidate William Weld.  These two candidates made sense in a way that the two major candidates do not, the Republican and the Democrat each being demagogic in their own way.  Two important issues that cause one to lean toward the libertarians:  they still believe in free trade, abandoned by the two major candidates, and they are extremely skeptical of foreign wars which, going back to Vietnam, have been one moral, physical and financial debacle after another.  Both candidates are former governors and neither is a rigid ideologue but both are progressive, inclusive and compassionate.  My own instincts have always been libertarian --though I still believe strongly in a single-payer health system, which I believe would be liberating -- and it looks to me as if the Libertarians are the most Burkean, least demagogic candidates.

Howard Gordon, producer of 24 and Homeland, has made Tyrant (on FX), now in its third season, one of the most interesting and involving shows on the air.  An American takes over an Arab country --the fictional Abuddin -- and tries to make it democratic.  The contradiction is that he has to use authoritarian methods to instill democracy and the country is soon riven by factions and the daughter of the American leader is murdered  by terrorists.  A new cast member this season is Christopher Noth as an American general, who extracts a high price for American military support.

Richard Price (writer) and Steven Zaillian (director) made The Night Of (HBO) into a gritty story about incarceration, lawyering, police investigation, trial, ethnic and generation divides.  Everyone is suffering from moral conflicts and personal difficulties, most of which are subject to compromises which make no one happy.  The eerie music of Jeff Russo adds to the downbeat mood.

Steven Bocho continues with the serialized police procedural he pioneered with Hill Street Blues(1981-1987)  and NYPD Blue (1993-2005) and the single case per season of Murder One (1995-1997) in Murder in the First (TNT).  He uses San Francisco locations effectively and has the two leading detectives in an interracial relationship that is broken up by the boss.  Bochco, as in his other cop shows and L.A. Law (1986-1994), emphasizes the personal difficulties of the job.