To Debate or Not?
The day after the Vice-Presidential debate in Salt Lake City, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates decided, unilaterally, that the scheduled October 15th debate should be virtual…like a Zoom business meeting. President Trump immediately stated that he wasn’t in, “That’s not what debates are about.” Meanwhile his opponent Joe Biden said he would follow the decrees set by the commission. Of course he will, because the less exposure he has to hard, tough questions, the better.
Like the moderator for the Vice-Presidential debate, the moderator for the now cancelled Town Hall debate is a Biden acolyte, Steve Scully who once served as an intern for him. So far, all the moderators picked, are or have been, so deep in the tank for the Democrats that they should show up wearing scuba gear.
The Vice-Presidential debate moderator, Susan Page, is working on Pelosi's biography, "Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power," due out 2021. Furthermore, donation records show that her son and stepson have given hundreds of dollars to support the Biden campaign. Given that, she couldn’t help Senator Kamala Harris, who hasn't been beaten this badly since Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii cleaned her clock in the 2019 Democratic primary debates.
So, with two debates in the books, the fate of the remaining two is up in the air. Naturally Joe would prefer the comfort of his basement recliner, with a bowl of Junior Mints at his side, for any future encounters with the President. There’s no way in a virtual debate for voters to size up their choices when they don’t know if one of them is looking at staff members holding up flash card talking points. Whether the Democrat partisans like it or not, there are serious questions about Biden’s cognitive abilities. Some claim he couldn’t find a cogent sentence with both hands and a flashlight.
Accordingly, Trump is not flawless, and Biden deserves the opportunity to point out those shortcomings to the voters as he sees them. But whatever his faults are, that doesn’t absolve the media/moderators failure to examine the 47-year record of Joe Biden as a Senator and Vice President in a debate forum. Based on what has been seen to this point, the scrutiny of his record has been sadly lacking.
What has been seen so far, nonexistent reportage by the media. Below are some examples of distortion and journalistic malfeasance. There are a lot more.
The serially repeated “very fine people on both sides” Charlottesville remarks attributed to the President as endorsement of racism and the white supremacy. In fact, he was talking about the issue surrounding civil war statues and revisionist history. It has been roundly debunked over and over again.
Why hasn’t anyone asked about Biden is using British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s campaign slogan, “Build Back Better”. Plagiarism of a British politician’s speech blew him out of the 1988 Presidential campaign.
No reporter or moderator is going to ask Biden about his son’s nefarious financial activities in the Ukraine, China or Russia while he was Vice President. Why did the Moscow mayor’s wife wire Hunter Biden 3.5 million dollars? Is his family beholden to these countries or certain individuals as a result of their largess?
There is no way that any fair minded American can honestly say that President Trump is or has enjoyed the kid glove treatment from the press that Joe Biden or for that matter any Democrat has. Therein lies the crux of the dilemma facing the nation’s eligible voters. Is Joe Biden a foreign-policy numbskull or a skilled negotiator who will always operate with America’s best interests at heart? Is his only solution to the pandemic a mandatory mask edict and a further shutdown of the economy? Does he think that cancelling the tax cuts recently enacted will really going to hasten a recovery? Why won’t he tell us now whether or not he wants to expand the Supreme Court?
Until the answers to these and other questions are forthcoming, he will continue to appear as a useful logorrhea suffering tool for the most radical elements of the Democrat party. That’s not what the country needs as a potential President.
So, to debate or not to debate is no longer a question. It’s a necessity. Voters in order to make an informed decision need them. Debates should be done in person, even if the candidates have to stand in 1950s game show isolation booths on stage.