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.

Presidential Debate Oct. 9, 2016

The revelation of more Trump lewdness was no surprise, even if one had not seen Michael Kirk's Frontline Choice 2016, which revealed that in military school Trump's heroes were Hugh Hefner, James Bond and Clint Eastwood; this has apparently not changed since he "grew up."  And Trump's major mentor was Roy Cohn, the ultra-sleazy investigator for Joe McCarthy, who taught Trump to never settle and to always declare victory, regardless of the outcome.  Trump's supposed "locker room banter" was unlike anything I had ever heard in a locker room, aside from the fact that it did not take place in a locker room, a place Trump has probably seldom seen.

The "debate" was unfortunately rather devoid of policy discussions, though Trump did say that he would abolish Obamacare and replace it with competitive insurance across state lines, though how this would help those who can't afford health insurance is not clear.  Trump did say that single-payer healthcare would be a disaster because Canadians, who have single-payer, sometimes come to America for operations, if they can afford it!  Give him credit for at least not using the term "socialized medicine" in order to scare people, though Clinton pointed out that Medicare is single-payer and quite successful.

Trump continued to dissemble throughout the debate, telling a Muslim woman that many people had seen bombs in the house of the San Bernadino terrorists and did not report it (there is no evidence for this) and that the U.S. has the highest taxes in the world (far from it!).  Trump also showed aspirations to becoming a dictator, like he is in business, by putting Clinton in jail while he also said she had never done anything , apparently not realizing she was just a Senator with little individual power.  Meanwhile, he attacks Obama for his executive orders.  And when confronted with his own words Trumps simply denies he ever said it, whether it was about a beauty queen' s non-existent sex tape or his original support for the war in Iraq.

Clinton tried to talk about policy and inclusion but was repeatedly interrupted by Trump, who accused her of being "a liar with hate in her heart," though it was unclear as to what he was referring (perhaps her ill-timed but correct description of Trump's supporters as "deplorable").  Trump even said he did not communicate with his running mate, who claimed that Trump had changed his mind about banning Muslims from coming to the U.S., though Trump's position on this is unclear.

And education was barely mentioned at all, except for Trump's claim that African-Americans do not have good schools in their neighborhoods, though he didn't offer to do anything about it, suggesting that people should vote for him because "what have you got to lose?"  I'm sure for many of us that is not just a rhetorical question.

Tim Kaine and Mike Pence: VP Debate Oct. 4, 2016

I liked the visual format of the VP debate:  Kaine and Pence in a continuous shot and moderator Elaine Quijano was only heard, though she seemed to have little control of the debate.  Kaine's approach was to quote Trump often and when he did Pence either denied he said what he did or ignored it, particularly when Kaine mentioned rounding up immigrants and deporting them, which caused Pence to say a lot of them were criminals.  And Pence had no responses to Kaine's Trump quotes about Muslims, African-American neighborhoods, Mexicans, disbanding NATO and women being incarcerated for having abortions.  One general response Pence had was that "Trump is not a polished politician" and therefore one should not take seriously anything political he says?!

Pence's unremitting refrain was for America to beef up the military (would he reinstitute the draft?)and demonstrate "broad shoulders."  He wants to abolish Obamacare -- though neither he nor Trump have any suggested alternative for the uninsured -- and Pence has also advocated privatizing social security, a disaster we managed to avoid under Bush.  Pence also mentioned several times "the war on coal" as shorthand for recent attempts to enforce environmental regulations. When Kaine mentioned Senator Scott's speech (Scott is an African-American Senator from South Carolina) saying that he had been stopped forty-seven times by the police it was just ignored by Pence, who pointedly did not endorse Trump's advocating stop-and-frisk and irrelevantly cited Trump's endorsement by The Fraternal Order of Police.

Kaine continued to mention Trump's broken promise of providing his tax returns, while Pence praised Trump for taking all his legal deductions, though he did not suggest that showing a loss of 900 million dollars one year might suggest he is not quite the businessman he claims to be. Pence also agrees with Trump that wages are too high already, so we should not increase the minimum wage, which Clinton and Kaine support.