A Madman in the White House?

Good morning, Friends,

I really don't care what any of the other pundits say. I know what I saw last night.

I saw a relaxed, polished, practiced, prepared, and yes, likable candidate debate an easily rattled, unstable, unglued and unhinged opponent.

I saw one candidate absolutely triumph and the other completely crumble for nearly an hour. It was a national embarrassment that some disingenuous analysts are actually trying to tell us was the polar opposite of what we witnessed.

Donald Trump thought he could come to the most important political event of his life without actually fully preparing for it. He made a YUGE mistake.

His apologists are saying they regret that he "missed a lot of opportunities." I would say he missed showing up for the debate.

On an intellectual level, Hillary Clinton tore him to shreds. I predicted this would happen months ago.

As my wife and I watched the two nominees trade barbs last night, two words kept popping into my mind when the respective candidates spoke: cogent and unhinged. I couldn't stop myself from yelling them out loud at the screen.

Guess who was whom.

Cogent.

Unhinged.

Trump had a strong first half hour. He legitimately blasted Hillary's flip flop on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which she once actually called "the gold standard," and which she now opposes for what appears to be political expediency.

But he started falling apart 39 minutes in, when Hillary nailed him on the 'birther' issue, and from then on she didn't take her foot off the gas.

Slamming Trump's 'birtherism'  and his sudden reversal on it was her first homerun.

NBC's Chris Matthews said she hit four more, including cajoling Trump into admitting that he's paid no income taxes for years, which he said showed he was "smart."

She also scored by hammering him on creating his 'business empire' on the backs of thousands of small vendors who provided services for which he then refused to pay. His response; "Maybe I wasn't satisfied with their work."

And he was caught flat-footed in countering Hillary's charges of his misogyny. He actually said and believed that most Americans supported him calling Rosie O'Donnell a "fat pig" and all his other physical insults of her.

Through it all, we could see on the split screen that Hillary comported herself with poise and dignity. Trump was fidgety, dry mouthed and sweaty, making weird facial expressions and seeming to shrink in physical stature while his suit grew larger.

By the end of the 90-minute event, he looked tired, beat up and rumpled.

Ironically, at the nadir of his pitiful performance, which included several incoherent rants that moderator Holt wisely let Trump run with, the nominee said his best quality was his "temperament."

There was an audible chuckle over that from the audience, though they had been instructed in advance to remain silent.

But the most chilling and frightening part of the entire evening was Trump's ignorance of the worldwide nuclear threat and our country's decades-long efforts to contain nuclear weapon proliferation.

Angling to have his finger on the nuclear trigger, Trump showed he was completely clueless about what that really means. This was startling.

Donald Trump revealed himself to be a madman who is so thin skinned he cannot even stand up to relatively easy questions from mild-mannered debate moderator Lester Holt.

After praising him last night, Trump complained this morning that Holt (also a Republican) was "unfair" to him.

Would Trump similarly whine about contentious world leaders, who'll be considerably more prickly than Lester?

Let's hope enough voters' eyes were opened last night that we don't ever get to that point. I know mine were.

I'm now squarely supporting our only genuine option for President of the United States--Hillary Clinton.