Presidential Debate Oct 19,2016

The Punkwat twins!  Brentwood is the world’s smallest giant, while his brother, Elwood, is the largest midget in the world.  They baffle science.                                                                              
--W.C. Fields as circus-master Larson E. Whipsnade, introducing two men of average size, in You Can’t  Cheat an Honest Man (1939)

Fellows who, whether in stocks, politics, bread-stuffs, morals, metaphysics, religion – be it what it may – trump up their black panics in the naturally-quiet brightness, solely with a view to some sort of covert advantage.                                                                                                                                                                          -- Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man:  His Masquerade, 1857

He [Donald Trump] does not have a circle of friends but an entourage.  Where are the historians, philosophers, or poets he admires or who admire him?  Whose are the minds that expand, challenge or refresh his own?  He reads nothing…. He knows and talks about little but his own excellence.  He cannot learn from peers, since he thinks that he has none.  Why consult others when they are, compared with him, losers?                                                                   
 -- Garry Wills, New York Review of Books, Nov. 10, 2016

A man of extraordinary energy, warmth and vitality, Ronnie [Cornwell] exuded optimism.  From an early age he lived far beyond his means, confident that something would turn up to avert disaster.  He smoked large cigars, drank brandy and whisky by the quart, ate at the best restaurants, stayed at the finest hotels, entertained generously and dispensed extravagant presents.  He seldom settled an account unless pressed to do so, and often not even then.  All debts, he considered, were negotiable.  To women he radiated an unstinting and inexhaustible virility, with unfailing results.  Yet menace lurked beneath the charm.  There was a glint of violence in his eye.  His hugs were a demonstration of ownership as much as of affection…. He aspired to be a tycoon, with interests spanning the globe, though in reality his business empire consisted of little more than short-term fixes and one-off deals, many of them shady in character.                                                                                                                       
–Adam Sisman, John le Carre: The Biography, writing about le Carre’s father.

The latest Presidential debate followed something of a familiar pattern, with Trump dissembling about some things and claiming that others, such as his groping of women, have been “debunked,” for which he cited no evidence, nor did he have any evidence for his claims that the election was rigged because, he claimed, there were millions of people registered to vote who were not legitimate voters.  Everything Trump likes is wonderful and what he doesn’t like is “a disaster,” such as Obamacare, which he says he will replace with “something much, much better,” though he doesn’t say what that is, except it won’t be a single-payer system because that would be “much, much worse.”  Clinton plans to improve Obamacare and offer tuition-free college, college costs and debts something that Trump has not even bothered to mention.  Trump continues to act like a tinpot dictator, threatening to throw Clinton in jail and blaming her, a single Senator, for not changing the laws that allow Trump not to pay any income tax. And not only is Trump opposed to a woman’s right to choose, he actually has said that women who have abortions should be punished in some (unspecified) way.  Whatever one may think about career politician Clinton, at least she wants to bring people together and not pit them against each other.