Reviews

Salvaging Dignity in a "Debate" Horror Show

2/18/2020

It's come to this

The other day I referred to the current debates as a "horror show."

Then came Wednesday night's Democratic slap-down from Las Vegas, with all the candidates greeting Mike Bloomberg with all the ear-ringing civility of the old Jerry Springer show, or maybe a Trump stalk-a-thon from 2016.

It's all a reality show now. What would happen if, say, Adlai Stevenson and Robert Taft, prominent candidates of the left and right from the 1950's, wandered into that raucous scrum?

Hard to maintain dignity in this melee. Rip Van Bloomberg blinked and shrugged and pursed his lips at the political Billingsgate being heaved at him. Rotten fish and unkind verbiage. Didn't they know who he is?

I'm typing this in mid-morning on Thursday. It wouldn't surprise me if Mayor Mike said "screw this" before noon and fired up his private carbon-burner for a weekend in his mansion in London. (Beats the hell out of Mar-a-Lago.) What does he need this for?

I'll leave the ratings and snide points to the paid observers in the media.
I only want to add that Joe Biden maintained his avuncular posture while people around him were tossing verbal chamber pots around the stage.

Maybe that means Uncle Joe is irrelevant? Or he is going to wait for Senator Amy and Mayor Pete to be led away for mutual assault? It's a battle of attrition out there while Trump pardons body-double criminals who remind him of, well, himself.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden stayed on his feet, hair and syntax in place.
(Here's what I wrote about him the other day, before Mayor Mike wandered onto the stage, stunningly unprepared:)
* * *
On Monday I strolled past an active television screen and saw a poised gent making sense (at least, to me) and I paused to take a look.

Omigosh, it was Joe Biden, the candidate that the national hangin' jury has consigned to oblivion.
Time to take Grandpa to the Dog Track.

Biden sounded and looked healthy, focused, experienced and decent -- not the distracted old-timer out in public beyond his bedtime in this circus of primaries, outdoors in small, snowbound states.
He spoke rationally about the danger of the disturbed man currently defiling the post of President,. He spoke in some detail about the right way to run his country.

"Wait a minute," I said out loud. He sounded like somebody who could pick a cabinet much better than the current collection of self-serving ghouls. He sounded as if he had some job experience, could absorb facts, as opposed to the illiterate and sadistic buffoon we currently have.

Joe Biden was being interviewed by Nicolle Wallace, the reforming Republican who has become one of the very best hosts on MSNBC. She asked good questions, did not interrupt or blather like some people I could mention.

So he's old. So are most of the other leading candidates. I'm three-plus years older than Biden, blessed to be in good shape, but I can easily imagine a president wanting to sneak off for a nap. Then again, look at the bloated, addled oaf we have now.

(Old president? Get a younger running mate. Stacey Abrams, age 46, jobbed out of the Senate by Georgia's establishment, would be a perfect running mate.)

So Biden stutters a bit -- a lifelong condition he has mostly overcome, which sounds worse in the circus carnival of primaries. Listening to him the other day, I could see him making sense with leaders of other countries, members of both parties, corporate executives, union officials, as well as citizens of all political leanings. I could see him delegating chores to responsible assistants.
The former Veep has been there, done that.

(I know, I know, the "borrowed" speech, Anita Hill, the vote on Iraq, his unqualified son taking a cushy "job" in Ukraine, complaints that Biden is a bit too old-school hands-on.)

For 14-plus minutes, Joe Biden looked and sounded presidential -- perhaps more than anybody else in this mad roller-coaster of a campaign.
For that moment, I was once again ready to reconsider the potential candidates to save this country.

In church in South Carolina, recently,

John Wilcockson

2/18/2020 03:07:05 pm

I totally agree, George. Let’s hope that Nicole’s interview can make a difference. Joe has my vote.

George Vecsey

2/18/2020 03:11:32 pm

Hey, John. Thanks for your opinion. Nice to see your name here GV

Gene Palumbo

2/19/2020 09:02:45 am

A friend sent me this. Too good to be true? My friend commented, "This is exactly what I have come to lately: high levels of negative partisanship on both sides, the importance of motivating the base as the key to winning, and the importance of the VP pick (probably for the first time). She goes so far as to say that Democrats have a lock on the presidency next year because of anti-Trump sentiment."

An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter
Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win 2020?
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/06/rachel-bitecofer-profile-election-forecasting-new-theory-108944

George Vecsey

2/19/2020 06:24:15 pm

Gene: Interesting article, Maybe we all over-think things.
Maybe 60 percent of the voters really do see through this con man.
But I think there is another slice that thinks voting for Trump is a guilty pleasure, best indulged privately.
GV

bruce

2/19/2020 07:43:12 pm

gene,

i read bitecofer's piece the other day.

interesting and it'd be nice if it was right.

i'm so sure of it that i'd bet your life.

my thought is that so many americans are pavlovian when they hear socialism or democratic socialism that the constant repetition of the word(s) would make sanders the worst nominee for the dems.

the right will be photo shopped ads of bernie looking like che guevara in his famous poster.

i've been part of the health care systems in canada and japan.

canada's are better in some ways, japan in others.

both superior than america's for the average person...don't think there's much doubt about that.

bruce

2/19/2020 12:10:33 pm

george,

i don't doubt biden would be most capable of hitting the road running, but he doesn't seem to able to close the deal when he runs for potus.

third time he's tried and seems to be going in the same direction as the previous two.

as for his stutter. i know about it--maybe i haven't been paying attention--but there's been a slurring of words i hadn't noticed.

if he was guaranteed to beat trump, and i wasn't a non american, i'd vote for him.

i like ex mayor pete too tho i think, i hate to say this, i think limbaugh might be right about many not voting for him because of his sexual orientation.

the premier of ontario--which has almost 40% of the country's population--was gay. she won the liberal leadership convention when the premier resigned and then a general election and became premier.

the liberals were decimated last time tho. mostly because of her politics but there were homophobics--including in provincial parliament--who wouldn't vote for her.

now we have a cartoon premier.

i'm impressed by abrams.

but--and i say this as somebody who used to be an otis bloatis before losing 75 lb more than 10 years ago--i'd worry about her health.

i'd be ok with warren or sanders tho given the general inability to discuss socialism in a rational way, i'm dubious bernie could beat trump.

he'd have to convince to many of the 'folks' that socialism isn't venezuela, china and what other countries you want to accuse of that sin.

oz, nz, canada, britain, sweden, france,germany et al are all socialist havens.

health care for all at a much lower per capita cost, longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates, maternity/paternity leaves, longer vacations.

all awful things that couldn't be explained away.

as you know i've travelled a bit and lived in japan for many years.

i've talked about health care with people from many western countries and japan (which i experienced)....i have NEVER heard a citizen from any of those countries who would switch their system with america's.

and to close off, my daughter's mother in law has health coverage when she visits the states. she's a sikh originally from india and seems to have relatives in every city on the planet.

she has a brother in california. visits him often. she had a health issue and spent 5-6 days in the hospital a few years ago.

ended up there was a salt deficiency that had been undetected in her 70+ years on the planet.

pre existing condition.

$133,000 (about $175,000 CDN)

bruce

George Vecsey

2/19/2020 03:43:34 pm

Bruce: The political savant with whom I share the house saw a video of ex-Mayor Pete being asked about the issue in recent days.
He gave a response about all the sordid things he has not done in and out of his marriage -- and that he knows a certain President who has. And when he was finishing listing them, the (considerably elder) audience gave him a standing applause. I think a huge chunk of older Americans have gotten the picture of loving gay couples. Factor out the Evangelicals who see Trump as a gift of God, to right all wrongs.
Here's the article about ex-MP:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/18/buttigieg-marriage-trump-porn-star-115922

bruce

2/19/2020 05:15:08 pm

george,

thanks.

i'd seen his response about not needing advice or comments from limberg and the liar in chief.

i don't think it's a good idea to get into a battle of wits with buttigieg.

seems unflappable, bright, well versed and knowledgeable.

plus, important in american politics, served in the military and, by god, he knows his bible.

bruce

Andy Tansey

2/20/2020 09:29:52 am

'Heard on NPR this morning that Stacey Abrams would welcome a call from the Dems' candidate looking for a running mate.

Still think Mayor Mike has the best shot at winning, regardless of who'd be the best at the job.

However, afraid it's all a losing cause. The big problem isn't the man in the White House. It's all the people who support him and whose rallying cries are crude insults, not policy. A personal approach I tried to adopt back-in-the-day is that, if you're not smarter - or kinder - or more patient - or more well educated - depending on the context, than at least 50% of the people, then you're probably part of the problem. By analogy here, I fear there may be sufficiently close to 50% of folks who vote based on guilty pleasure or the candidate that hurls the most insults or is most likely to enhance their own time at the trough to carry more than 50% of the electoral vote. Not that that happened before. He won the popular vote, too, in 2016, said so himself, and wouldn't lie. Even if he lied, what does truth matter?

George Vecsey

2/20/2020 11:12:45 am

Andy: thank you. It's a different world, as last night's debate shows, I was a news reporter around the US in the 70s, and met many people with the same concerns as the MAGA people at the rallies, but the tenor is so different, The Bitecover article (in Gene's comment, above) suggests we can over-think things and should look at the 2018 elections, etc. (When Abrams probably got jobbed.) But I think a lot of voters have private agendas when they get into "the booth." So, yes, it is concerning. GV

Hansen Alexander link

2/20/2020 12:19:51 pm

Wow again George,

I thought I was back somewhere in the 1980s or something as I read your powerful piece of writing about last night's Democratic debate. Never mind the apt observations you made, which were brilliant. Let us celebrate your writing.

This is the George Vecsey who non sports fans you used to rave about. "You got to read this sports guy named Vecsey. This guy writes English how it is supposed to be written. Line for line, paragraph for paragraph, one powerful metaphor and analogy and historical reminder after another."

No, I'm not even going to point out or discuss the politics of it all, the national implications. Like reading the great classical works of fiction, I'm just going to let your words wash over me this afternoon. What a pleasure. This is what good writing is about; it carries us along. We don't care about the plot. We just enjoy the words. Everybody who reads George's column should tell everybody they know to read it today. A master's course in rhetoric.

As ever,
Hansen

George Vecsey

2/21/2020 08:42:59 am

Hansen: thank you so much. Your kindness mixed with your lawyerly critiques on occasion make you a highly valued friend and reader. GV

bruce

2/20/2020 12:46:29 pm

george,

good piece.

all of bloomberg's billions couldn't save him from being castrated last night.

some, not me, may cut him a break because it was catch up time since it was his first visit on stage with the piranhas..

next time MIGHT be a better barometer.

the debate was final proof, if any was needed, that promises of civility a few months ago were just a little optimistic.

not sure who i'd vote for if i was a citizen of your country.

the big 'national health care' craziness seems, well, crazy, to citizens of the big blank resting above the usa so advocating for it is not exactly a buying point.

warren and ex mayor pete might be my ticket--at this stage.

however, if nixon with bush2 as his VP, were available vs atheist/amoral trump and his unchristian VP i might vote tricky dick and the worst potus of the modern era--until trump freed him from that designation.

bruce

George Vecsey

2/21/2020 08:52:13 am

Bruce: In his next term, Trump is going to turn his attention to crimes against humanity committed in the great northern wilderness, forcing people to go to socialized doctors, GV

bruce

2/21/2020 09:13:54 am

george,

you know how passive, polite and boring canadians are, eh, but we'll fight to the death to stop the horror of socialism soiling the second greatest country in the history of the universe.

i, for one, am not interested in a longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates, per capita costs less than half of the excited states of 'merika.

and don't get me started on new parents being forced to take paid maternity/paternity leave.

to the barricades.

geez. i've just been told we've had socialized medicine for quite some time.

not many people know that.

bruce

Ed Martin

2/21/2020 05:57:43 pm

Interesting note: Unless I read too quickly, I did not see any references to Bernie, the third New Yorker in the tag team match.

I have become a little unsettled on Joe.B. I originally planned a Joe B and Kamala ticket and I suppose that still could happen. As much as moderates seem to be in order to win the swing states, which is, after all, all that matters-38 votes away from trump 2016. Wisconsin 10, Michigan 16 and Pennsylvania 20, all flipped from Obama to trumpery.
Other possibilities, Arizona is reportedly a Senate tie, North Carolina another. Both were targets in 2016, but stayed red. There really do not seem to be any more. People keep mentioning Florida, but there is Republican Governor and two right wing Senators, so....

Warren got the critics pick award for the debate, hmm. I think Amy, who has won twice in Minnesota and is the kind of moderate those states seem to prefer, possible Veep. But demographics....

It is an irony that Mayor Pete has so many strengths, arguably the most intelligent, Rhodes Scholar, Oxford degree, speaks eight, I believe, languages- imagine his impact at NATO, etc. Speaking to the other leaders in their language, as opposed to our current cipher.

Sta tuned, meanwhile Bernie, will surely need to show strength in polls in the swing states, perhaps by declaring a VEEP partner with the right woman.

bruce

2/21/2020 06:12:44 pm

i haven't seen anything that makes me think bernie is religious, but i'm a bit surprised there hasn't been any ranting about him being jewish.

no dog in the hunt except electing somebody who will beat the disgrace oozing his way thru the presidency.

i wouldn't mind seeing ex mayor pete as potus. i don't think he'd flinch in front of trump and might even intimidate him.

warren at the top and pete as vp wouldn't appall me.

and if biden can do it....good too.

Comments are closed.

Salvaging Dignity in a "Debate" Horror Show

Categories

Buy the Book