It was a bright, happy moment for endlessly lambasted Republican Donald Trump who was alert and bursting with energy as he debated presidential issues with an angry, flub-afflicted, just barely present opponent, Joe Biden, and followed the rules of two excellent moderators.
Often said to be widely respected and having just completed seven days of instruction, Biden almost seemed to be fighting instead to be seen as demented, lost and just half-awake even though cheerleading associates later insisted his supposed youthful acuity was unafflicted by his irrelevant 81 years of life.
This likely Democratic nominee to be president was just suffering from a cold, they said, despite no sneezes, no coughs, no runny nose, just a raspy voice whose words often made no sense. In this 90-minute national TV appearance watched by 51 million Americans, Trump said it would be a democratic achievement to turn laws on abortion over to states responding to citizen majorities.
In his reply, Biden precisely said, “Look, there’s so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just murdered and he went to the funeral. And the idea that she was murdered by a by by an immigrant coming in, too. They talk about that. But here’s the deal. There’s a lot of young women being raped by their by their in-laws, by their by by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by just it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to arrest them when they cross state lines.”
It’s possible here to see a hint of a real argument, but do you want a president sufficiently confused to talk like this on live TV to have special power in national policies?
Biden’s southern border laxity hasn’t just killed Americans by the hundreds of thousands through fatal fentanyl poisoning but caused the deaths of illegal immigrants themselves on their desert treks. He addressed the issue in a proposed bill with all kinds of dangerous stuff part of the whole. He abused some 130,000 young migrants under 18 by allowing them into the country without their parents. Some of the girls were forced into prostitution. New York Times revelations have led to more governmental attention to the issue but this has been worse than Biden’s talk of Trump separating immigrant children from criminal parents.
The great fear of Democrats right now is Biden’s unnecessary spending causing runaway inflation that has slowed down a little, his freedom-reducing, regulatory enthusiasms, his national divisiveness, his tall tales and foreign policy failures that may inadvertently promote World War III on top of Cold War II already under way.
Many want a replacement, but who? Surely not his vice president whose inabilities were highlighted by her role as a border czar ignoring the border situation as it got worse and worse. The staffers in her office keep quitting because of abuse. Well, what about Gavin Newsom, the governor of California who is charming, good looking, articulate and incompetent?
For those paying close attention, as in watching Fox News video revelations or catching up on daily details, it has become forever clearer that Trump outshines Biden, and for those who are not tuned in to that degree we had the debate revelation, largely the work of CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. Proudly progressive Democratic enthusiasts and Donald Trump bashers, these biased journalists nevertheless let both him and their apparently preferred presidential candidate, Biden, do all the bitter yapping as they asked fair, balanced and meaningful questions without voicing judgments themselves.
Thanks to no moderator interference except some polite mentions of simple rules, the show was about two men wanting too often to lead the country either by misleading themselves or the public. Trump’s fewer errors were at least backed up by an energetic, forceful, self-assured, relaxed performance, while Biden’s fumbles conveyed nothing anyone could understand.
A CNN poll found that 67% of interviewed watchers felt that Trump won the debate with 33% as bewildered as Biden himself.
Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may email him at [email protected]. Send comments to [email protected].
