by Rick Manning
The Trump-Biden debate was at times difficult to watch.
I repeatedly found myself screaming at the television. When I could make out what Biden was saying, I screamed what a bunch of ‘malarkey.’
When I screamed at President Trump, it was because of a missed opportunity. Just one example was the long back and forth on veterans. Rather than argue over who veterans liked the most, Trump should have pointed out that at the end of the Obama-Biden presidency, seriously ill veterans were unable to get appointments with the VA to see a doctor. Why? The career bureaucrats in charge made a decision to put them at the back of the line because they were going to die anyway.
President Trump ended this evil by passing bi-partisan legislation which reformed the VA, and made it possible to fire those VA bureaucrats who didn’t do their job. Vice President Biden left vets on the streets to die, Trump fired the horrible human beings who made the decision to leave them in agony without treatment and put people in charge who made it a priority to take care of sick veterans. It is that simple.
Of course, President Biden glitched at the very beginning of the debate for what was an interminable amount of time, and had at least a couple of other obvious events where he completely lost his place on the script he was force fed over the eleven days he spent preparing for the debate.
But the problem for Democratic operatives is that Biden revealed that he cannot mentally do the job of being president, but didn’t suffer a complete meltdown which could be used to justify removing him from the ticket. Biden likely did just enough to avoid a palace coup leading to his being denied the nomination and removed from the presidency, but not enough to dissuade anyone from the idea that he is not fit to serve for another four years.
And, by the way, if anyone believes Biden has a six handicap, then they probably also think his uncle was eaten by cannibals. Of course, someone who fills his speeches with fairy tales and outright lies about his personal achievements would be exactly the 80 year old golfer who claimed to have a six handicap.
Trump’s strategy in the debate was clear and he stuck to it. Keep pounding on Biden’s border crisis, and throw in the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal as an occasional chaser. This was most effective when he kept reminding viewers about the Biden administration policy of opening up Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to the millions of illegals they have allowed to stream into the country, while also putting these illegals up in luxury hotels while our veterans sleep on the streets.
As for Biden, he reminded me of an end of career boxer who was just trying to hang on to the final bell. The only thing that was missing was Corn Pop.
In the end, it was a clear win for President Trump. The format that Biden insisted upon helped focus Trump and kept him from taking Biden’s bait on a couple of issues.
I wish President Trump had immediately answered the question on accepting the election result with a cohesive nuanced affirmative, that win or lose, once the election was certified by Congress, he would accept the results, clarifying that investigating various state election procedures was completely in line, in order to make future elections more secure and honest.
And I wish he had spent more time talking about what the withdrawal from Afghanistan should have looked like, in contrast to Biden’s giving up our secure air base to the Taliban and then trying to evacuate under duress from a commercial airport, leaving American citizens and our best allies behind. This basic failure of leadership by Commander and Chief Biden which led to 13 of our brave servicemembers deaths is reason enough to deny him four more years..
Obviously, there were questions not answered and at times Biden looked childish and petty.
Overall, Trump earned a solid B, while Biden showing clear decline was at best a D+. I am not certain that anyone who supported Trump going in was not supporting him at the end. Those who are voting for Biden because they hate Trump will still vote for Biden while wishing they had a better option. And those undecideds, either became Trump supporters based upon the issues of their economic interests, or moved off of Biden to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is the candidate who is most likely to see a move in his numbers out of formerly Biden voters.
All in all, national Democratic leaders were the biggest losers as Biden did just enough to keep them from denying him the nomination, but not enough to convince anyone that he is capable of doing the job for another four years – purported golf handicap notwithstanding.
Whether the Democrats remove him or not, this was the debate when the American public learned what the rest of the world knows, the American President is capable of doing the job, and every day he remains in office the world gets to be a much more dangerous place.
If polling tells the Democrat hierarchy that Biden is no longer a viable candidate, they will remove him. The question becomes will they use the 25th amendment to the Constitution to end his presidency as someone who is no longer fit to serve.
