ICYMI: I went on a bit of a rant Friday about this week’s presidential debate. The short version: It’s going to be a shitshow that will leave us all the dumber for it.
But first, since it’s a beautiful Sunday, some obligatory dog pictures.
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Auggie’s new bandana is not only stylish, it’s also a dog-safe bug repellent. He seems to like it.
**
Flashback: Unlike the GSD’s Pete was not into playing ball, but he was an avid collector of green balls. He seems to have taken some delight in that.
Roger Ailes: Let’s face it, there are three things that the media are interested in: pictures, mistakes and attacks. That’s the one sure way of getting coverage. You try to avoid as many mistakes as you can. You try to give them as many pictures as you can. And if you need coverage, you attack, and you will get coverage.
It’s my orchestra pit theory of politics. You have two guys on stage and one guy says, “I have a solution to the Middle East problem,” and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news.
“One thing you don’t want to do is get your head up too far on some new vision for America because then the next thing that happens is the media runs over to the Republican side and says, “Tell me why you think this is an idiotic idea.”
Judy Woodruff: So you’re saying the notion of the candidate saying, “I want to run for President because I want to do something for this country,” is crazy.
Roger Ailes: Suicide.
**
And here we are in 2024, as Joe Biden prepares to debate Donald Trump, again.
Nota bene: This week’s debate won’t be a Lincoln-Douglas debate; or even a Kennedy-Nixon. It will be more like watching 90 minutes of a howler monkey flinging its shit around the room.
Keep that in mind as you wade through the torrents of pre-debate advice, analysis, and punditry. Of course, it will be immensely important — perhaps even decisive. But that’s part of our national tragedy, because the debate will be neither enlightening nor ennobling.
Forget about serious policy discussions, since Donald Trump is neither interested in nor capable of putting together a lucid or coherent argument. A substantive discussion of the national debt? Health care? Foreign policy? Immigration? Tax policy?
Surely you jest.
Instead, we will get a blizzard of personal insults, lies, bluster, and bullshit. Fact-checking won’t even begin to catch up with Trump’s firehose of frauds and fabrications. And no one will remember any of the substance, anyway, because it’s all about the show now, isn’t it? How many times did Trump mention Hunter? Did anyone get rattled? Did Biden look old?
On Nicolle Wallace’s show last week, I didn’t feel that I was going out on a limb in saying that this is going to be the worst and the dumbest presidential debate in American history. Despite the fact that the moderators are excellent and the new rules — no live audience and muted microphones — are designed to de-shittify Thursday’s debate, we all know what’s going to happen: The same thing that happens in any debate with Trump.
Remember the debate in September 2020?A quick list of losers would be 1. America, 2. The Presidency, 3. Trump, and 4. The National Sanity.
[If] you could bear to watch this unwatchable merdefest, there were memorable moments.
At one point, the former vice president of the United States said to the current president, ‘Will you shut up, man?”
And he spoke for all of America…
As JVL writes in this morning’s Bulwark, “The Cleveland debate was a miniature, 90-minute version of the last 4 years: depressing, exhausting, full of craziness and lies.”
It was also a reminder what happens when you elevate a blustering, mendacious, bully to the Oval Office. The whole world cringed.
Some of the other reactions:
“Trump was something else entirely — some kind of post-truth, street-fighting, full-spectrum bulls**t artist,” wrote Damon Linker. “Say anything. Dominate constantly. Display no warmth. No compassion. No empathy. Just fight, fight, fight.”
Bill Kristol noted that the debate “was a disgrace because of the behavior of one man, Donald Trump. The interrupting and the bullying, the absence of both decency and dignity— gave the affair the rare and sickening character of a national humiliation.”
James Fallows called last night “a disgusting moment for democracy. Donald Trump made it so, and Chris Wallace let him.”
“But this is our country on Trump,” writes Amanda Carpenter. “We are constantly assailed by belligerent bullshit from our Manbaby-in-Chief.”
**
Unfortunately, that was merely prologue to what we will see this week, except that this time he’s a convicted felon and more deranged than ever.But somehow, we have to pretend that we are watching a ritual of democracy.
Trump can crap his diapers on stage, roll around on the floor making feces castles, and express himself in nothing but grunts and howls. The New York Times will write, “Trump’s passionate and articulate performance reminded voters of his ability to command the stage.”
Oof.
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Our window wells are old and too large for the bubble covers you can buy at the big home improvement stores, so they are unenclosed. In the nearly twenty-five years we've lived here, we've never seen any animal in them with the exception of the occasional toad. They have seemed fat, happy, and safe, with a plentiful supply of yummy bugs, so we've left them alone.
But the other day, my husband called me to come look at something, and sighing, I got up to go and see. Apparently, we had a friend.
Rick Wilson perfectly captured the 8-years long ritual self-immolation of the NYT.
CNN moderators will forego substantive foreign policy questions for their trademarked faux expressions of concern. as they ask Biden why he can't shake the ageism issue.
MSNBC will play yet another tasteless musical interlude to highlight the pretend-importance of this pointless debate, followed by nonsensical panel discussions.
If Dante were alive, he'd have to add another circle of hell for those watching the debate.
Charlie, I have never in my life felt such an emotional loss that is facing our Nation. I’m not to sure we’re gonna survive it. At almost 74, I recall my dear Italian Mother in Law saying to me in 2016, “That the way the Country is, I’m glad I’m closer to the end than the beginning!” She has since passed on, and I could only imagine her comments now! This November, please vote Blue to save our Nation from a disastrous end!
Rick Wilson perfectly captured the 8-years long ritual self-immolation of the NYT.
CNN moderators will forego substantive foreign policy questions for their trademarked faux expressions of concern. as they ask Biden why he can't shake the ageism issue.
MSNBC will play yet another tasteless musical interlude to highlight the pretend-importance of this pointless debate, followed by nonsensical panel discussions.
If Dante were alive, he'd have to add another circle of hell for those watching the debate.
Charlie, I have never in my life felt such an emotional loss that is facing our Nation. I’m not to sure we’re gonna survive it. At almost 74, I recall my dear Italian Mother in Law saying to me in 2016, “That the way the Country is, I’m glad I’m closer to the end than the beginning!” She has since passed on, and I could only imagine her comments now! This November, please vote Blue to save our Nation from a disastrous end!