Hillary Clinton confirmed she’s a bit imperious. Donald Trump confirmed the emperor has no clothes.
Hillary Clinton confirmed she’s a bit imperious. Donald Trump confirmed the emperor has no clothes.
Clinton made clear she knows her stuff. Trump made clear that even when he’s touching on the truth, he’s unfit to occupy the White House.
The task was simple, really. Clinton had to appear trustworthy and honest. Oh, and be likable, a woman’s unending burden, but that continues to be a challenge for her.
Trump had to, well, given his strengthening poll numbers, keep on doing what’s worked for him so far: Ignore anything close to a fact, lie, and put on a great show. Surprisingly, for the first 30 minutes or so, Trump was low-key, for him, and appeared to be a capable debater. But then, he became unmoored, rambled, got into the weeds about finances and his support of the Iraq war and NATO’s role in the world.
Trump did a decent job bringing up issues where Clinton is vulnerable — ISIS, emails — but none of that made up for his own weaknesses. Do Americans really think we’re “losing on everything?”
Moderator Lester Holt had a difficult task Monday night. Unfortunately, he blended into the background, without strongly challenging Trump’s serial mendacity or Clinton’s blithe blowoff of the email scandal or her wrong assertions about Trump’s taxes. The only time he really made a stand was in assuring the back-pedaling Trump that he did, indeed, support the Iraq War.
Both candidates had to reach out and touch skeptics. But the undecideds still might be scratching their heads. There was no knockout punch, but Clinton won on points.
But given the bizarre dynamic of this presidential race, it’s not a matter of who won, it is a matter of who showed the audience the clearest ability to lead this country forward, push it toward prosperity and peace and do it in a grounded, sober and thoughtful manner. After all, the debate was not a tryout for “The Apprentice.”
Trump branded his Democratic opponent part and parcel of the political establishment. No argument there. He conceded she had experience, but labeled it “bad experience.” Given his restrained, but enduring braggadocio, willful ignorance of the facts, walking back ridiculous statements without any sense of reflection and those simple, declarative sentences that any 3-year-old is beyond — “It’s not a nice thing she’s done” — Clinton clearly looked, and sounded, not just presidential, but also capable and tough. Still, she didn’t build upon her usual aura of competence.
She knows her stuff: She knows what NATO’s Article 5 mandates — Trump was clueless; she knows stop-and-frisk was judged unconstitutional and violent crime, despite the plague of Chicago shootings, is down. Trump kept flogging law and order. It plays to the crowd, but is no solution to racial animus; she knows that President George W. Bush set the timetable for our pulling out of Iraq. Trump insisted, wrongly, that it was President Barack Obama’s decision. And don’t get us started on birtherism.
Then, at the end we saw vintage Donald, the bully. When Clinton reminded viewers that Trump had a habit of calling women “pigs” and “slobs,” he retorted that he had planned to “say something rough” about Clinton and her family.
But he, like the gentleman he is, thought better of it: “I said to myself, ‘It’s not nice.’”
Like we said, unfit.
— Miami Herald