;)
The Commentariat -- Sept. 6, 2016
Presidential Race
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump ran virtually parallel campaigns on Monday as they geared up for the final stretch of the presidential race. She ... open[ed] up her campaign plane and chatt[ed] with reporters. He followed suit, inviting a smaller group of reporters onto his plane and answering questions during the 30-minute flight. She took along her running mate, and so did he, as both focused on Ohio and nearly crossed paths in Cleveland. Their motorcades all but passed each other, and all four candidates' planes ended up on the tarmac at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at the same time. Mrs. Clinton ... met with union leaders in Cleveland while her husband, Bill Clinton, appeared at a Labor Day parade in Detroit. Seeking the backing of progressive voters, she enlisted her primary opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who made his first solo appearance on Mrs. Clinton's behalf at a rally in New Hampshire." -- CW
Enjoli Francis of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton told ABC News' David Muir today that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, should not have to step down before the election from his position at the Clinton Foundation. 'I don't think there are conflicts of interest,' the Democratic presidential nominee said in a joint interview today with running mate Sen. Tim Kaine. 'I know that that's what has been alleged and never proven....' 'I'm very proud of the work that the Clinton Foundation has done,' Clinton said. 'It's a world-renowned charity because of the work that my husband started and many, many people helped him with.... He has made it his life's work, after the presidency. And he has said, if I am so fortunate enough to be elected, he will not be involved. And I think that is appropriate.'" -- CW
Jeff Mason & Mary Milliken of Reuters: "... Hillary Clinton said on Monday she will not accept an invitation from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto for a visit after rival Donald Trump created what she called a 'diplomatic incident' in his foray there. In a written excerpt from an interview with ABC News that will air Tuesday morning, Clinton simply said 'no' when asked if she would travel to Mexico before the election on Nov. 8, without elaborating further." -- CW
Annie Karni of Politico: "Hillary Clinton on Monday expressed 'a very serious' concern about Russia's apparent tampering with the U.S. election, implying that Vladimir Putin and the 'adversarial foreign power' he governs are actively trying to elect Donald Trump.... After more than a month when she spent most of her time out of sight raising money from mega donors and celebrities in wealthy enclaves from Los Angeles to the Hamptons, Clinton's aggressive stance toward Russia was part of a roaring back to the campaign trail on Labor Day.... Headlining two rallies in two states -- and campaigning through a hacking cough she said was brought on by her seasonal allergies -- Clinton also attempted a reset with the press. She took more than 20 minutes of questions from reporters aboard her plane, ending a 275-day standoff during which she refused to hold a press conference." -- CW
Paul Waldman: "The big difference [in news coverage of Clinton's & Trump's financial histories] is that there are an enormous number of reporters who get assigned to write stories about those issues regarding Clinton.... [But] when it comes to Trump..., a story about some kind of corrupt dealing emerges, usually from the dogged efforts of one or a few journalists;... and then it disappears.... The news organizations don't assign a squad of reporters to look into every aspect of it, so no new facts are brought to light and no new stories get written.... You'd have to work incredibly hard to find a politician who has the kind of history of corruption, double-dealing, and fraud that Donald Trump has. The number of stories which could potentially deserve hundreds and hundreds of articles is absolutely staggering." Waldman provides a partial list. ...
... CW: Here's what I think the real reason for this difference is. You only have to read one story from Waldman's list to be convinced Trump is a dirty rotten crook. Editors have read those stories. They're convinced. Clinton, on the other hand, constantly flies nearly as close to corruption as Icarus flew to the sun, so editors assign reporters to keep hunting till her wings melt. Just look at the the two WashPo stories linked below, the first by Helderman & Lee on Clinton & the second by DelReal & Fahrenthold on Trump. The Clintons' manipulation of rich friends is legion but also keeps coming up shy of illegal; the IRS determined that what Trump did was illegal in more ways than one. The "news" in the DelReal story is that Trump lied (or to be more charitable, either Trump on Bondi's advisors lied; also it depends upon what the meaning of "it" is) "Donald Trump lied about ..." could begin of the headline of every story in which Trump says something. So barely newsworthy. ...
... digby finds yet another motivation for the double standard: "... there is another dynamic at work, born of the same leftish skew among members of the press. We expect our own to adhere to a higher standard than conservatives. We don't expect the right to live up to those standards, and they don't disappoint us when they don't. But when appearances (even false media ones) suggest people like the Clintons have fallen short, we're on a hair trigger for throwing them under the bus. Dirty tricksters on the right know this and exploit it as a weakness." Read her whole post.
Rosalind Helderman & Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: When she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton recommended that an invitation to a department dinner on higher education go to "a representative from a for-profit college company called Laureate International Universities, which, she explained in an email to her chief of staff that was released last year, was 'the fastest growing college network in the world.'... The company was started by a businessman, Doug Becker, 'who Bill likes a lot.'... Nine months later, Laureate signed Bill Clinton to a lucrative deal as a consultant and 'honorary chancellor,' paying him $17.6 million over five years until the contract ended in 2015 as Hillary Clinton launched her campaign for president. There is no evidence that Laureate received special favors from the State Department in direct exchange for hiring Bill Clinton.... A close examination of the Laureate deal reveals how Bill Clinton leveraged the couple's connections during that time to enhance their personal wealth...." ...
... Kevin Drum: "I hope everyone will excuse me if I ignore this entire story until there's even the slightest hint of some kind of wrongdoing or corruption." ...
... CW: If you're wondering how the Clintons went from "dead broke" and "in debt" when they left the White House to fabulously wealthy when one of them worked for a charity & the other had a couple of lousy government jobs, the WashPo story provides some of the answers.
I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me. -- Donald Trump, in a GOP primary debate, August 2015 ...
... Jose DelReal & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Monday dismissed questions about his failure to disclose an improper $25,000 contribution in 2013 to a political group connected to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was at the time considering whether to open a fraud investigation against Trump University. The donation, made by the Donald J. Trump Foundation, violated federal rules that prohibit charities from donating to political candidates. Trump and his team also failed to disclose the gift to the Internal Revenue Service, instead reporting that the donation was given to an unrelated group with a similar name -- effectively obscuring the contribution. '... I never even spoke to her about it at all. She's a fine person. Never spoken to her about it, never,' Trump said Monday.... Marc Reichelderfer -- who worked as a consultant on Bondi's reelection effort -- told the Associated Press in June that Bondi spoke with Trump and solicited the donation herself.... Trump has bragged about making political donations to politicians to curry favor with them and benefit his businesses, regularly using such statements to undermine his critics in both parties." -- CW
By Driftglass.Hill: "In an interview with ABC News..., Donald Trump said people don't care if he releases his tax returns.... 'I don't think anybody cares, except some members of the press.'... Trump told ABC News he's provided the 'most extensive financial review of anybody in the history of politics.'" -- CW ...
... More Crazy Shit. Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "... Donald Trump in an interview that aired Tuesday touted his temperament while attacking Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for not having a 'presidential look.' 'The single greatest asset I have, according to those that know me, is my temperament,' Trump told ABC's 'Good Morning America.' 'But she came up with this ... line, "Oh, lets talk about his temperament." It's the single greatest asset I have.'" -- CW ...
... Extra Credit Crazy Shit. Jose DelReal: "Donald Trump said Monday that he would have left the G-20 summit in China over a logistical flap that left President Obama disembarking Air Force One onto a plain metal staircase." ...
... CW: This is akin to Newt Gingrich's shutting down the U.S. government because then-President Bill Clinton gave him a lousy seat on AF1. ...
... Paul Waldman: "It will certainly be impossible for other countries or actors to manipulate President Trump by insulting him." -- CW ...
... Extra, Extra Credit. Jeremy Diamond of CNN: "Donald Trump on Monday refused to rule out granting legal status to undocumented immigrants who remain in the United States, breaking with an immigration proposal he laid out just last week. The Republican nominee vowed last week during a major speech in Phoenix that undocumented immigrants seeking legal status would 'have one route and one route only: to return home and apply for reentry like everybody else.' But asked Monday aboard his plane whether he could rule out a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, Trump declined. 'I'm not ruling out anything,' Trump said. 'We're going to make that decision into the future. OK?'" -- CW ...
... He Can't Stop (Even in a Written Statement). Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Donald Trump lamented the passing of far-right activist Phyllis Schlafly in a statement on Monday, thanking her for sharing his commitment to an 'America First' agenda.... [Trump] also called Schlafly 'a champion for women.' She was known as a social conservative crusader who led the movement to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, painted feminists as aggressive 'men' in disguise, and claimed that 'virtuous women' never experienced workplace sexual harassment." -- CW
Stephen Collinson & Maeve Reston of CNN: "Trump's best chance for altering the race lies in the presidential debates.... In front of a vast television audience, the GOP nominee could reshape perceptions of his character and readiness -- if he can avoid being drawn into gaffes and personality clashes by Clinton. He will benefit from rock-bottom expectations, given controversies whipped up by his tempestuous personality and the vast gulf in experience between Trump and Clinton." -- CW
A Man with No Plan. Paul Waldman: Donald Trump's plan to bring back jobs is to bring back jobs. "Now why didn't anybody else think of that? And also 'renegotiating' trade deals, though he never actually says what that renegotiation would entail, other than presumably going to China to say, 'Hey China, give us back our jobs!' ... Fewer than one in 11 Americans now works in manufacturing, and the idea that after a couple of renegotiated trade deals we're all going to be sewing tube socks and assembling iPhones for fantastic wages is, shall we say, less than realistic. We all know that Trump is a spectacularly shallow candidate. But even here, on his supposed area of expertise, it's obvious that 'How?' is a question he is utterly incapable of answering." -- CW
David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! runs off another laundry list of Trump's shady business dealings and ties to the mob. --safari
The Cowardly Liar, Ctd. Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: When actually in the room with the people he derides, Trump turns from bully to coward." Beinart's observation is similar to one Akhilleus made yesterday:
So far [Trump's] most egregious insults and lies have been delivered in front of audiences of howling supporters, not blacks or Latinos or women. When he finds himself in a position to scream in the face of one of his chosen villains, he backs down in a most obsequious way. Will actually facing Hillary Clinton, well prepped and loaded for bear have an effect on the size of the Trumpesticles?
Crazy Old Men for Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump's campaign will release an open letter on Tuesday from about 90 retired generals and military officials endorsing his presidential campaign, urging a 'long overdue course correction in our national security posture.'" Among them are "Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin of the Army, who was criticized by President George W. Bush for describing the battle against Islamist terrorists as a religious proxy fight between a 'Christian nation' and the 'idol' of Islam" and "Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney of the Air Force, who ... has previously submitted court documents challenging President Obama's place of birth." -- CW
Dave Weigel keeps running into voters who say they "don't know where the presidential candidates stand on the issues" and want the candidates to "cut the mudslinging" and "talk more about the issues people care about." Voter ignorance is not the fault of the candidates or the media; it's the fault of lazy voters who can't be bothered to look up the candidates' policies, which are readily available on their Websites (though Clinton's site has "exponentially" more info than Trump's) or on the Googles. Also, too, it isn't only lazy voters: "Watch those odd ads from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, [a deficit-obsessed, anti-"entitlement" org,] asking candidates for 'a plan' on Social Security, and you would think neither candidate has proposed entitlement plans. (They have.)" -- CW
Other News & Views
Josh Lederman of the AP: "In the wake of another missile launch, President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to work with the United Nations to tighten sanctions against North Korea, but added that the U.S. was still open to dialogue if the government changes course. Obama signaled the U.S. would redouble its effort to choke off North Korea's access to international currency and technology by tightening loopholes in the current sanctions regime. Obama called the series of ballistic missile launches 'provocations' that flouted international law and would only lead to further isolation." -- CW
William Wan & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: " After being called an obscenity by the president of the Philippines, President Obama canceled a meeting with the leader that had been scheduled for Tuesday. President Rodrigo Duterte had threatened to curse out Obama if he raised the issue of extrajudicial killings by Philippine authorities in a sweeping crackdown on drug trafficking.... Obama earlier said that when speaking with Duterte, he would not shy away from the topic of "international norms" when it comes to due-process rights." -- CW
"In Case We Accidentally Let You Vote, Vote Republican." -- GOP. Gene Robinson: "Every once in a while, the curtains part and we get a glimpse of the ugliest, most shameful spectacle in American politics: the Republican Party's systematic attempt to disenfranchise African Americans and other minorities with voter-ID laws and other restrictions at the polls.... Republicans claim they want support from African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities. They don't deserve the time of day until they stop this appalling effort to keep us from voting at all." -- CW ...
... Washington Post Editors: "In just four states are felons permanently barred from voting absent action by the governor. And in one of them, Virginia, lawmakers are considering an even more restrictive regime that would forever foreclose the possibility of redemption for tens of thousands of citizens. For this essentially racist project, Virginians can credit the ethically challenged majority leader of Virginia's state Senate, Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City). He filed legislation last week that would bar people convicted of violent felonies, in Virginia disproportionately African Americans, from ever having their voting rights restored.... The bill is retribution against Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who has infuriated Republicans by attempting to restore voting rights to some 200,000 ex-convicts, nearly half of them African Americans...." -- CW
Brian Stelter of CNN: "21st Century Fox has agreed to a settlement with Gretchen Carlson, the anchorwoman who sued Roger Ailes alleging harassment and retaliation in July, Vanity Fair magazine reported Tuesday. Ailes, the powerful Fox News CEO and chairman, resigned in the wake of the allegations, which he has continuously denied. 21st Century Fox, however, is acknowledging harm. In a highly unusual public statement on Tuesday morning, the company said, 'We sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect that she and all our colleagues deserve.' According to Vanity Fair, Fox's settlement with Carlson is for $20 million. The magazine reports that Fox has also reached settlements with two other women who alleged harassment by Ailes." -- CW ...
... The Vanity Fair story, by Sarah Ellison, is here.
Sydney Ember & Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "A lawyer for Roger Ailes ... has sent a letter to New York magazine suggesting he might take legal action over its reporting about Mr. Ailes. Lauren Starke, a spokeswoman for the magazine, said that Charles J. Harder, who was Hulk Hogan's lawyer in his successful lawsuit against Gawker Media, had contacted the magazine by email and asked it to preserve documents related to Mr. Ailes in preparation for a possible defamation claim.... Gabriel Sherman, a reporter for the magazine, has written extensively about Mr. Ailes and the sexual harassment allegations by female employees that resulted in his ouster in July as chairman of Fox News. On Friday, New York published a lengthy article by Mr. Sherman about Mr. Ailes and his downfall, and in July Mr. Sherman was the first to report that Rupert Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James, had decided to remove Mr. Ailes from his position." -- CW
Jay Michaelson of The Daily Beast: "In an unprecedented show of inter-tribal cooperation not seen, according to one elder, since the Battle of Big Horn, thousands of activists from at least 200 Native American tribes have gathered in a remote part of North Dakota to protest the construction of a new oil pipeline." --safari
Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "The soaring temperature of the oceans is the 'greatest hidden challenge of our generation' that is altering the make-up of marine species, shrinking fishing areas and starting to spread disease to humans, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of ocean warming...The ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the extra heat created by human activity. If the same amount of heat that has been buried in the upper 2km of the ocean had gone into the atmosphere, the surface of the Earth would have warmed by a devastating 36C, rather than 1C, over the past century." --safari
Beyond the Beltway
Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "The trial in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal, which is scheduled to open on Thursday with jury selection, will play out like a documentary on the rise and fall of [Gov. Chris] Christie's presidential ambitions, a tell-all tale of how he and his aides built his administration and his 2013 re-election campaign with an eye to winning the White House, then scrambled to contain the damage as inquiries into the lane closings began to wreck those hopes." CW: Pretty enjoyable reading for those of us who aren't exactly Christie fans.
Brad Reed of RawStory: "Mike Krawitz, a New Jersey Republican who is running for a spot on the West Deptford Township Committee..., told Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi on Facebook that he hopes she gets raped by a Syrian refugee." -- safari ...
... Update. Matt Friedman of Politico: Nuzzi said [Krawitz] has been harassing her on Facebook for over a year. "'Fuck. You. Olivia,' he wrote [on Facebook]. 'I. Hope. Somebody. Rapes. You. Today.:). A minute later, he wrote 'Hope. You. Get. Raped. By. A. Syrian. Refugee. :).'...Now the West Deptford[, New Jersey,] GOP claims his account was hacked -- on a different social media site[: Twitter, not Facebook]." -- CW: It's kind of magical. Some awful person who owns Krawitz's Facebook page has been harassing a female reporter for a year because Krawitz's Twitter account was hacked.
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Reader Comments (21)
Yaaaawn...
The Confederate led 114th congress is back in session; you know, that sad collection of layabouts, criminals and traitors who haven't accomplished as much as a class of kindergarten children on their first day. Thinking about this group of indolent wankers being "back to work" reminds me of H.L. Mencken's quip when told Calvin Coolidge had died. "How can they tell?"
Guffaws aplenty soon to follow.
I'm confused. When is a bribe to a politician not a criminal offense?
Now that it's September and everyone is back from summer vacation you know it's time for play period. It's time for little Paul Ryans favorite, "pin the blame on the donkey" with social service cuts as amendments to "gotta pass" legislation. Zika funding will get the treatment first and then government funding in the last chaotic hours. Won't they have fun!
Get your popcorn ready!
Beinart's piece on Trump reads almost like an amusing quirky thing––a flim flam man persona until you get to this sentence:
"His ego is so overdeveloped, and his ideological convictions so underdeveloped, that it’s hard to imagine him walking into a room and saying things he knows his audience doesn’t want to hear."
But still the gravity of Trump's pathology needs to be stressed more stridently and powerfully. We have a disturbed, ego maniac running for President and I'm afraid some are treating him as if he was an actual viable candidate. I find this frightening.
Philippine's President Duterte "Son of a whore" is equivalent to "Son of a Bitch" since he calls everyone he disdains this same phrase. The snub and rudeness to our President is unprecedented as far as I know. Seems as if there's a little Trump in this guy who acts like the dictator he is.
@Marvin: Only when a bribe is coated with sugar and put in deep pockets with no holes.
@Marvin Schwalb: Nowadays, bribing a politician is almost never a criminal offense.
Prosecutors or others would have to find a smoking gun -- like a voicemail or e-mail exchange where Trump said, "Pam, I'll donate to your campaign if you quash all the complaints about Trump U. & promise not to investigate it, okay?" and Bondi replied, "No prob, Mr. Trump. It will cost you $25,000 to make the Trump U. scam investigation disappear." Then Trump said, "The check is in the mail, you pretty thing." And Bondi said, "Knowing you, Mr. Trump, I'll wait till the check clears before I deep-six any investigation."
Absent such clear evidence, "the appearance of impropriety" is not criminal. It was the mode of Trump's donation to Bondi -- which he laundered through the Trump Foundation, then claimed on an IRS filing that the $25K went to some other organization, not Bondi -- that was illegal.
Marie
As of a couple of months ago, the Zika virus posed a serious health risk to 2.2 billion people, about 30% of the world's population. Of course, if it only threatened black and brown people, congress wouldn't give a half a mouse turd that had been left in Paul Ryan's gym bag for the last 72 months, or however long it's been since congress actually did any real work.
But Zika now threatens Americans. And not just any Americans, millions of southern Baptist voters (oh, and a substantial number of African-Americans, but what can you do? Hmm...maybe they can institute a literacy test for any vaccine. Blacks have to recite the Hippocratic Oath. In ancient Greek. Backwards. Whites only have to recite the hypocritic oath: "I am a Republican" to get the vaccine) who live in Florida and along the Gulf Shore all the way to Texas. So, of course congress will act to pass a bill requesting the necessary funds to deal with this crisis, and do it in a way that does not politicize the threat of using it as a sneaky way to hammer ideological enemies, right?
Wrong.
You see, Confederates in congress, lest you forget, are snakes in the shithole, lying in wait for a chance to flick their forked tongues and embed their snaky fangs into anything that might help any group they have deemed off limits for help, such as Planned Parenthood, and by direct extension, women, especially pregnant women. And you wouldn't think it possible that a bill requesting funds to help fight a virus that has its most dangerous effects on pregnant women and their babies would include language restricting any funding to one of the country's chief sources of healthcare for pregnant women, but, yes, it does.
So the do-nothings are all set to continue their indolent, intolerant ways, and as an added bonus, stick it to pregnant women. Why? Because Confederates, that's why.
The inimitable Groucho Marx describes the first few days in the Confederate controlled congress:
"The first morning saw us up at six, breakfasted, then back in bed at seven. This was our routine for the first three months. We finally got so we were back in bed at six-thirty."
Good going, Mitchy and Paulie! Stout fellows. Health crises do not come before scoring political points against one of their most dangerous enemies: women and children.
From a Reuters story linked in this morning's The Wires widget:
"'If Hillary wins, we force her to waste time, resources, momentum, early good will and political capital - all on cleanup duty,' said a senior aide to one Republican senator."
No doubt said with glee and not once ounce of cognizance. That Republicans are willing to undermine democracy and shred what is left of bipartisanship, of cooperation, of respect, of decency. That taxpayers are providing a job to this "senior aide."
I wonder about some young person reading the article. What hope does she or he hold for the future or governance?
I am heartsick. I wish this "senior aide" could be identified and confronted.
Donald Trump aside, we have ceased to be a functioning society.
"I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you." Flannery O' Connor
(From "The Habit of Being" - a collection of O'Connor's letters)
The following will lead you to a 1959 interview of Ayn Rand by Mike Wallace - Chris' Dad.
This taping struck me as merging with recent RC content & commentary regarding both the journalist's role & the views of Trumpkaishek.
http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/the_outspoken_ayn_rand_interviewed_by_mike_wallace.html
(this shoulda launched yesterday)
... hold for the future OF governance?
Sorry.
Nancy,
And if Clinton is elected and given the nod again in four years, that will make 16 years, the better part of an entire generation during which Republicans have fought tooth and nail to make sure nothing happens, to grind the gears of democracy to a halt, to make sure the oaths they took as elected officials are spat upon, to defy the will of the people who elected their choice in four consecutive elections to carry out their agendas, only to have the Party of Nihilism and Hatred defile the very spirit of Democracy. If only they took governing as seriously as they take countermanding governance.
Oh, and about that unidentified senior aide? These people are all cowards. Rank cowards. Like their presidential choice, Coward Trump, and that Trumpbot in NJ who wishes for a reporter who displeases him to be raped, but who then claims those words were the work of some anonymous hacker. They all present themselves as tough talking "real men" but when it comes right down to it, they are a fainthearted and feckless lot, talking tough as long as no one can pin the elephant tail on their sorry, lying, lazy asses.
Actually, Nancy, EITHER works... although the typo/autocorrect is a bit darker...
I despair of the press ever holding Dumpster responsible for anything. He is more Teflon than any president or candidate in my memory. But that says a lot about the press, doesn't it? Yeah, not my job, say Chunk Toad and Mike Squallor...
Marie wrote: "Nowadays, bribing a politician is almost never a criminal offense."
Unless you're a Democrat.
For Republicans like Trumpy bribery is an everyday thing so reporting on it is not worth the ink used to print the headline. But Democrats?
That's not to suggest that people like NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver shouldn't get smacked down. But the press looks the other way when it's Republicans because, I suppose, a corruption and Republicans story is no better than "Dog bites man". Another reason Trump gets a pass on his myriad scandals and lengthy litany of iniquitous behavior.
OK, another question: polling. I tried to look online on how people are selected but I could not find a clear answer. So when you look at the general poll, Clinton and Trump are close. When you look at the Electoral College number Clinton has a big lead. So when you see a poll that looks at 750 people nationwide and Clinton and Trump virtually tied, did they divide the population by state, by state population or just random? If you ask 10 people from Alabama and 10 from New York that result does not play with the US voting system.
Debate stuff.
Just a thought. Were I in the Clinton camp, I would be urging her to spend time watching the Bush-Gore debates. No non-partisan viewer could possibly have thought that Incurious George won those debates, but because he didn't trip and fall off the stage and because he spoke when called upon, he was considered the hands down winner by the press and many others. One reason was the rock bottom expectation that he could do anything more than say his name. Gore didn't help himself by rolling his eyes at some of The Decider's more galling gibberish (I was doing the same, although there may have been one or two "expletives deleted" as accompaniment). The same may apply to Trump. As long as he doesn't tip over at the first question, it won't matter if he lies through his teeth, it will be considered a great success.
Hillary, on the other hand, will have to come across as Daniel Webster, able to best the devil in his own courtroom through forensic wiles, canny logic, and devastating debating chops. She won't be given an inch, while Trump will be given miles. It's the cretinous bully versus the class valedictorian. All the other bullies will be pulling for him and a vindictive, ignorant press likewise.
I don't envy her. But I do despair for the nation if she stumbles anywhere along the way. Trump can fall on his face while hawking out his word salad, but if she splits an infinitive or dangles a modifier, they'll kill her. Can't you just hear Upchuck Todd now? "Well, that single grammatical misstep will likely put our buddy Donnie in the White House. Hills will never recover from that terrible mistake, likely the result of her angst over killing those Americans at Benghazi. And that part about Trump stating that Ayn Rand wrote the Constitution? No biggie. That was just Donald being Donald. Tee-hee."
Oh, and now that the candidates are tied (in certain polls--and expect Trumpy to return now to his gleeful poll bragging, a fetish that was shelved when polls turned against him), don't forget that Bush, an ignorant putz, enjoyed a 12 point turnaround in the polls after the debates with Al Gore. 12 points! And remember, for millions of voters, truth no longer matters. It's all about style now.
According to Gallup, "Gore won the popular vote, but he might also have won the Electoral College vote had his 8-point pre-debate-period lead not slipped away in the last few weeks of the campaign."
(Editor's note: He might also have won the Electoral College had not the Supreme Court stopped the vote and handed the victory to their guy, the ignorant putz.)
Received wisdom is that debates rarely make or break an election. These could.
Clinton has a lot to think about. And so do we. Trump, on the other hand, has only to show up and not pee his pants on live TV. Great expectations there ain't.
@ Akhilleus
Have been puzzling over this R and D double standard since the first Clinton's election. Simple hypocrisy, SOP for the oh-so moral party of family values and law and order (for some, of course), has much to do with it. But there has to be more.
Two additional elements, one psychologic the other cultural, occur to me.
The psychological is the penchant we all have to appear better than we really are, and it's out of control in Republican psyches. The look-down-the nose sniffing we get from the R's is in part attributable to their never-spoken but dimly sensed suspicion that they're not really better than other people. They're not smarter; they're not better looking; and they're certainly not more virtuous. In many cases, by common standards, they come up short in all three categories, but the R's do come in first in one: they are champion compensators.
That's why they're prone to classism and racism, the noisy pursuit of easy virtue that animates the family values and abortion battles, their energetic blindness to their own obvious faults (think David Vitter and so many more), and their eagerness to point fingers at others. When those ready fingers don't have a target, they have no problem manufacturing one. All the evil is out there somewhere. It has to be out there. They are incapable of finding it in a mirror.
The cultural component is related to whom our history has trained us to punish and whom to forgive. We have been trained to smack down the poor but forgive the rich and powerful, no matter how egregious their sins. We admire wealth and power--I think of all the Mafia-inspired movies I've never watched-- even when all would agree it has been illicitly achieved, often originating in truly horrific behavior.
We didn't prosecute those who brought us the Bush Crash, and SCOTUS in its Citizens United decision and others has, as Marie said above, set such a high (low?) standard for bribery they have effectively made the term meaningless and elevated bribery to an accepted way of doing business. Maybe that's not new but by consciously and publicly countenancing such behavior they have quietly admitted that we are and have been a Nation of Sleaze. As the outcry has been minimal, we seem to like it that way.
Then watch the results as our cultural inheritance about gender expectations tiptoes into that sleazy soup. Even SCOTUS "expects" sleaze in the male-dominated business world. In that sense, Trump fits right in. But HRC is another story in part--only in part, I emphasize--because she's a woman, and we, males and females alike, still prefer to cast women as repositories of quiet wisdom and unquestioned virtue. That's why Evil Women (witches, the evil step-mother) frighten us more than evil men (they're a dime a dozen) and why charges of sleaze stick more readily to HRC than they do to Trump. As many have pointed out, Trump is just doing what a long line of successful men have done, but that Hillary, who has never seemed to know her place, has gotten out of line.
Don't know if this contributes much of value but have long believed that many of our political differences have little directly to do with policy, and that most policy differences arise from the deeper wellsprings of our beings which often go unnoticed or unremarked.
Murky territory, I grant.
BTW, I think it was Dorothy Parker who is reported to have said that about Coolidge. Thank the Lord for all the snots, male and female!
Ken,
I think there is also, baked into the Confederate DNA, an unshakeable belief that they are right, no matter what, a confused condition that allows for all manner of misanthropic and illegal activity, not to mention execrably inconsistent thinking and philosophical dishonesty to pass barely noticed. As long as said transgressor is part of our tribe, even our Bible beaters will overlook the divorces, the mob connections, the lies, the cheating, the profligacy, the misogyny, the bribery, etc. They'll even overlook (and they have) starting a war for fun and profit based on lies.
Liberals are beset with quite the opposite gene, the one that is always questioning everything. Not questioning the core values, perhaps, but questioning what we can put up with to achieve those goals, something that Digby seems to be suggesting.
And thanks for straightening out that Coolidge quip. It's a good one. As a fan of Parker, I'm not sure how it slid out of her column and into Mencken's. As someone once said, we're never so sure of a thing as when we're dead wrong.
(In fact, it was essayist Guy Davenport, who confirmed this maxim when asked by American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage to help with some detective work concerning an allusion made by the eccentric artist Joseph Cornell about a dog owned by Italian baroque composer, Giovanni Pergolesi. Lost yet? Don't be. Read the essay. It's short and memorable. My brother and I still crack each other up by saying "Sorry, no D of P yet found".)
@Akhilleus & @Ken Winkes: Not even necessarily Dorothy Parker, but perhaps an interesting fellow named Wilson Mizner: In a 1938 "Esquire" article, Jim Tully wrote, "The telephone rang. My secretary returned with the announcement that Calvin Coolidge was dead. 'How can they tell?' Mizner asked, without looking up."
Like you, I'm afraid this is the type of non-issue that -- in the words of the press -- would trip Clinton up. Perhaps she would say in a debate, "Ha ha. PolitiFact gave you a 'Pants on Fire' rating for that one, Mr. Trump." But it turns out PolitiFact gave Trump a "False" rating. And the headline writers go nuts: "Clinton exaggerates." "Clinton paints Trump as liar in a Pants-on-Fire moment for Clinton herself." "Clinton lies in critical debate." Blah-blah. And whatever "Mostly False" thing Trump said would be lost forever in the press's "interpretations."
Marie
Marie,
OR....Trumpado might say, "I don't know, but people are saying that when Calvin Coolidge died, blah, blah, blah..." But that would assume that Donaldo knows who Calvin Coolidge was and why either response, "how do they know" or "how can they tell" is funny.
Great site by the way. Any site that attempts to investigate the provenance of quotes by Plato, Ray Manzarek, and Margaret Fuller is showing due diligence in that regard and worth a look.
er...ah....what he said...
One very real possible outcome for the debates is that Trvmpvs gives in to the angels of his stupider nature and goes full stream-of-unconsciousness.
So here's Donaldo, sitting on his ass in front a bunch of mostly white veterans being served up softball questions. Instead of teeing off and knocking 'em into the power alleys, he decides it would be a good time to put down the bat and visit Trump World, aka Never Never Land.
Responding to a question about cyber security, Trumpy lectures the crowd that "cyber" is a brand new word, an entirely new concept that didn't even exist a couple of years ago.
Ahhhh......no. Wrong again, Mutton Head.
The term came into widespread use after the publication of William Gibson's "Neuromancer" (a novel that popularized the concept of cyberpunk and which begins with one of my favorite opening lines: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."--an image, because there are no dead channels anymore, wedded to the ancient days of broadcast television, which shows you how long "cyber" has been "a real word" to correct Donaldo. "Neuromancer" was published in 1984, 32 years ago. But I suppose Trumpado was busy protecting his tiny member from all those terrible sexually transmitted diseases. All he was reading were reports stating that "Mary, Debbie, and Wendy are all clean and good to "go"."
Later on in this rant he goes on to state that his buddy Putin is laughing when he thinks of Hillary. Nyet, Donaldavich, he's not. He's annoyed that she might become president. If he's laughing, it's at you, you fucking twit.
Hey, is "twit" a new word too?
If this idiot goes off script at the debates and goes into a stemwinding stupor like this one, things might not look bad for democracy, civility, respect for facts and knowledge, and the fate of the nation.
Then again, Chuck Todd might praise him as exactly what America needs right now.
Guys. Why do you force me into an unpleasant counter position? It's not quite true that only Democrats get hit for bribery. Remember the former governor of Virginia?