Debates Fail on Issues, Accomplish Mission

Another week comes to an end, Friends,

An old friend and producer of mine from my days at N.C. Public TV shared an interesting New York Times article on Facebook this morning.

It stated that the presidential debates were a failure of journalism. The sub-headline whined that not one question was asked about global warming.

Indeed, we really didn't get a much better understanding of where either candidate stands on the issues, beyond what we already knew.

This would be a YUGE problem for voters, if we hadn't already known so much about the two of them.

We already knew Donald Trump's simplistic positions on immigration, free trade, 'beating the crap' out of ISIS, lowering taxes to help the super rich, limiting Muslim immigration, denying climate change, overturning legal abortion, bromancing Vladimir Putin, and creating a 'law and order' police state for blacks and Latinos.

The only thing these two 'Republicans' have in common is funny hair.

Hillary's public positions were also well known, and the party platform is a long progressive wish list. We have scant idea what her private positions actually are, but, thanks to WikiLeaks, we do know that they're probably different from her public ones.

No matter. As long as she pursues only her public policies, that's fine. And it would be hard for her not to.

As President, she'd be under extreme scrutiny. And she and Bill are somehow already fantastically wealthy anyway, which makes any personal malfeasance in office less tempting.

So since we basically know where the candidates stand on the issues--and conventional debates would have served only to poke holes in their policies--conventional debates were absolutely not what were called for in this unique election.

We simply needed to determine one candidate's temperament and suitability to be President, and if we could trust that candidate to handle the world's most important job--especially with control of the nuclear codes.

On that level, the debates were a smashing success.

True, we didn't get many if any of our policy questions answered. But to the biggest and most important one we got our answer loud and clear.

Donald Trump is a lying, vain, thin-skinned, angry and vindictive maniac, and he's proven it to us three times. He poses an existential threat to both this country and indeed the entire world.

And he's the first major presidential candidate in history to openly undermine our most sacred democratic institutions and threaten the smooth transition of power. He's truly a nihilistic monster.

He's not a patriot, and a legal case could be made that he's seditious.

Now imagine if the debates had been strictly focused on policy--no drama, just a calm discussion.

Polls show that the country is split right down the middle on the major issues.

Hillary Clinton is such a personally flawed candidate, after three normal debates she'd most likely be trailing a more sedate Donald Trump. And the Democrats would be in a panic with just over two weeks to go until the election.

Yes, our journalistic curiosity might have been more satisfied, but the wrong candidate would wind up in the Oval Office.

So, on a public service level, the debates absolutely accomplished what the American public needed them to do.

Thanks to these three three-ring spectacles, most sane people were convinced that the closest Donald Trump should ever get to the White House is his new hotel down the street from it.

And since he may not concede the election when he loses it, even that may be too close.