Watching The Debate - Executive Summary: She Lied, And Lied, And Lied
The moderator repeatedly got Harris off the hook, and not Trump. I'd like to see someone - anyone - aggressively question Harris. The "moderator" argued with Trump, not Kamala
OK, the importance of this - if it has any at all - is to see how both act and react under pressure. We’re finding out how Trump handles pressure - but in letting Kamala off the hook - and tossing softball questions - we don’t find that out about Kamala. When she starts floundering, the “moderator” steps in. And as we go along, the “moderator” spins out a demonstrably false narrative and sets up talking points for Harris, for example on the run-up to the Ukraine War in 2022, and at this point, I wonder whether the “moderator” has rehearsed this narrative and these talking points with the Harris campaign prior to this debate show. That isn’t going to happen with Putin or Xi - or Orban or Maduro or Hamas - there’s no Hail Mary or “moderator” there to save Kamala and us, it’s the Man In The Arena - and she ain’t him, and with luck, won’t be him. And Trump is the only one actually arguing here - Kamala is just recycling canned talking points. And this - If no notes were allowed, then what was Kamala constantly looking down at?…
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride or slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength.” https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Encyclopedia/Culture-and-Society/Man-in-the-Arena.aspx
As to the closing remarks - Harris said that if elected, she will do a laundry list of rather vague aspirational things - the same as she’s been saying on her campaign - no details, just vague aspirations - and Trump replied that she and Biden have been in power for the last 3 1/2 years and has done none of them - and she could go back to the White House and Capitol Hill and do them - but it’s always tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes. It might be, in fact, a very good thing to go back to where things were in Trump’s term, because things in the US were very much better than now. Kamala asking to make a continuance of her “success” should be a bit too much, it’s nothing I’d want, because her “success” has been our downfall.