We may have just gone through the most bizarre week in American political history. Where to start. Well, the thing that got the most attention was the revelation that Donald Trump said some vulgar things about women, 11 years ago. He quickly apologized for it, and made the point that his SAYING something bad, wasn’t nearly as bad as Bill Clinton DOING something really bad, and Hillary Clinton’s trashing of the women that Bill Clinton had victimized. And much as I dislike what Trump said (11 years ago), I think he makes a valid point. What Bill and Hillary did, IS far worse.
But that didn’t stop a number of Republican candidates from dumping Trump. It was even rumored that Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, and his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, were considering taking a hike. I never believed it, and both remain solidly in Donald’s corner. But the press was running wild with speculation over the weekend.
And of course the sordid revelations all broke with a critical debate coming up Sunday evening. Many were predicting that Donald would melt down in the debate. How could one have such embarrassing revelations occur, just days before an important debate, and not come apart, for all to see, in an historic public humiliation?
Well, that’s not what happened. Trump dominated Hillary Clinton in the debate. He apologized, but then went straight at Hillary and her sexual predator husband. He even had the nerve to have a number of Bill and Hillary’s female victims at the debate – in the front row.
Here were some of the highlights of the debate. One got a sense of the hostility between the two candidates from the start, when they refused to shake hands with each other, which is pretty much standard operating procedure under normal circumstances. These two people must really dislike each other.
As usual, the two moderators, Anderson Cooper and Martha Radditz, might as well have been wearing “Hillary for President” t-shirts. Several times they let Hillary drone on with answers as long as she wanted, but cut Trump off. They’d admonish the crowd if there was a reaction favorable to Trump or against Hillary. But they were fine with any crowd reaction that was favorable to Hillary. (I notice these things.)
In an hour-and-a-half debate, the moderators couldn’t find time to ask one question about the scandalous Clinton Foundation. Yet Martha Radditz thought it was okay to personally critique Donald Trump’s perfectly reasonable assertion that we shouldn’t broadcast ahead of time when we’re going to launch the attack to retake Mosul, because ISIS leaders might use such information to escape said attack. Martha Radditz reminded me of biased moderator Candy Crowley injecting herself into the Romney/Obama debate back in 2012. Crowley inaccurately corrected Romney who had been criticizing Obama for not calling Benghazi a terrorist attack. Romney was right. Crowley was wrong. But the interference greatly benefited Obama. And hurt Romney.
One of the highlights of the debate involved, of all people, Abraham Lincoln. WikiLeaks several days earlier had revealed that Hillary believed that candidates should have a “public and a private position” on certain issues. Is this an outrageous and cynical view or what! Anyway, during the debate, Clinton claimed that that’s the way Abraham Lincoln looked at things, and cited the Steven Spielberg movie “Lincoln” as her proof. (Totally absurd, by the way.) Trump responded, “She lied. Now she’s blaming the late, great, Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe never lied. That’s the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you.” Game, set, match, to Trump.
And speaking of WikiLeaks, another revelation we learned over the last week, is that in one of Hillary Clinton’s behind-closed-door speeches, she acknowledged that she is for “open borders.” Think of it. No borders at all. Just let anyone, from anywhere, at anytime, freely enter our country. Although neither the moderator, nor Trump, nor Hillary obviously, made mention of it during the debate. I’d strongly encourage the Trump campaign to emphasize this as a top issue from now through election day. Just trying to be helpful.
By the way, a few other things that the “Trump said some naughty things 11 years ago” story pushed off the front pages. The September jobs numbers came out, and job growth was 10% lower than had been predicted, resulting in the unemployment rate ticking up from 4.9% to 5%. And Bill Clinton made a gaffe (when a politician tells the truth) saying about Obamacare “so you’ve got this crazy situation where … people… wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half.” If we don’t see that quote in ads from now until election day, then Republicans are guilty of political malpractice.
One final thing. At the debate, after Donald Trump apologized for what he’d said, moderator Anderson Cooper kept pressing Trump, over and over, “have you DONE any of those things?” Trump finally responded, “No, I have not.” Now I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid I’m not. I think Anderson Cooper has been fed inside information by the Clinton campaign or press interests working with the Clinton campaign. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t already lined up a woman, or women, who will claim that Trump did indeed make uninvited advances. And they’ll drip, drip, drip this stuff between now and the election, at times most detrimental to the Trump campaign, and most favorable to the Clinton campaign.
So when will the other shoe drop? We’ll know soon enough.
