For those of you who missed last night's second Republican Presidential primary debate, what you missed was a whole lot of the candidates bashing Trump, Biden, and each other. At one point Chris Christie, ...called Donald Trump "Donald Duck" for ducking out of the debate. (Groan. It was kind of funny, though). Aside from the trash-talking, it was frequently kind of hard to latch onto what any of the candidates were saying - or trying to say - what with everybody all up in each other's grilles, interrupting each other, talking all at once, ignoring the moderators and not letting each other take their turns. Really, the whole thing was pretty rude. However, amidst the verbal food fight, there was one high point and one seriously cringey low point, said low point being brought to us once again by the silver-tongued Chris Christy, assisted by the silver-haired Mike Pence. The candidates had taken a break from trashing Trump and Biden to trash teachers' unions. It was during this segment that Chris Christie, wanting, I suppose, to get in a double-hitter against both Biden and the teachers, said that Joe Biden couldn't be trusted on education because he was sleeping with a member of the teachers' union. Now, I imagine I'm not the only one who needed a moment to get it: Aw, geez, he's talking about the President sleeping with his wife, Jill! After hearing that I kind of wanted to cover my eyes and ears and go "La, la, la, la, la," and soon wished I had, because what followed was so much worse: Mike Pence, instead of mercifully steering us away from that icky moment, rather enlarged upon it, saying, “My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union. But I’ve got to admit I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years and, um, full disclosure.” If only he hadn't added that um, full disclosure! I'd love to be able to block out that whole "old folks sleeping with each other" episode (as would, I'm guessing, everybody else who watched it) but, alas, the media have glommed onto it and now the ewwy details are everywhere you look. And yet, for as much as the candidates spent most of the evening throwing (metaphoric) rotten tomatoes at each other, still there was one high point amidst all the splatter that I thought was actually kind of nice. It came about towards the evening's end. On the podium in front of each candidate was placed a paper and pen. The candidates were then asked to write down which one among them they would like to see "voted off the island." Now, this was perhaps a rather mean question, but, in fairness, considering how rudely the candidates had behaved all evening not only towards each other, but towards the moderators as well, the candidates probably had that question coming. Their response, however, was a surprise: in a sudden coup of solidarity, the candidates refused to answer the question. Nobody wanted to throw anybody off the island. I, for one, was grateful to see - and impressed by - this gesture of civility. Oh, well, Chris Christie (of course) did write down the name of one of the candidates he'd like to see thrown off the island. But it was Donald Trump. So I guess that was okay.
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"Tropical Depression"
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October 2024
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