Vincent J. Curtis
20 Oct 2016
The final presidential debate
between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, (all by herself this time) seemed
drained of emotion compared to the previous two debates. The first two were fiery as Hillary and the
moderators sought to embarrass Trump and Trump fought back. This time, the moderator, Chris Wallace of
Fox News, ran the debate professionally, asked tough but fair questions of both
candidates and focussed on the issues. Wallace
was rightly commended for his performance.
Trump looked stern the whole night
but he did not allow himself to be goaded by Hillary. As for Hillary’s performance, Jonah Goldberg
gave the following apt description, which I don’t think can be improved upon:
“She, as ever, was plodding,
uninteresting, deceitful, and arrogant. But she made no major mistakes because
she understood she needs to sit on her lead and make this election a referendum
on Donald Trump. Of course, if you know anything about the issues, or if you
listened carefully to her answers, she just confirmed what a corrupt,
dishonest, and un-compelling politician she is. She speaks in white noise, even
when she’s saying outrageous or ridiculous things.”
For the first time ever, Wallace
asked her about partial-birth
abortion, a hideous procedure in which a baby
just few days from birth is brutally killed.
Hillary waffled on about how all was unfair to the woman and then
defended abortion in general, but not that procedure. Trump pounced, and any pro-life voter knows
whom he has to vote for in good conscience.
Trump was asked about Roe v. Wade
and he forthrightly said that he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court to
overturn the decision so that the matter could be returned to the States for
regulation by the State. A good answer.
That
brought up the Supreme Court. Hillary
explained why she would appoint political hacks to the bench so that the
Supreme Court could be used as a legislature for progressivist causes. And she named the causes, and how the Court
should be corrupted and stacked to vote as she desired. Trump whiffed a little on his answer, but he
did get in about the need to protect the 2nd Amendment and that he
would appoint justices in the mould of the late Antonin Scalia. Trump should have said in answer to the
question (where do you think the Supreme Court should take us?) that the role
of the Court is to apply the constitution to the laws passed by legislatures,
not to legislate itself. Therefore,
justices to the Supreme Court should be devoted to the constitution, not to
particular political causes and should not decide what the constitution means
on a given day based upon the state of their digestion. It should be based on the text and the
meaning of the words used at the time of passage. Nevertheless, I think Trump’s meaning came
across.
A question that Wallace put to
Trump showed indirectly the lemming-like behavior of the media. Wallace asked Trump if he would accept the
results of the election given all he has said about the system being rigged. Trump replied that he would decide at the
time, based upon what he saw. When
pressed, Trump said he would keep Wallace in suspense.
Obviously, the media had been
brewing up something beforehand about this matter of acceptance because every
media outlet from Fox to the AP went wild immediatelyabout Trump not doing
right by the republic, about peaceful transfer of power, blah-blah-blah. The big media people are dumb as a bag of
rocks.
After about half an hour of
jumping up and down about not accepting results, people began to recall Al Gore
and the fiasco over the Florida vote in 2000.
Gore conceded, then he withdrew his concession, then he fought the
Florida results all the way to the Supreme Court. Fox then recalled that Trump said the same
thing at the first Republican primary debate in August 2015, and it was all
those other candidates who said they would accept the results and support the eventual
Republican nominee. You know, the ones
who failed to support Trump after he won.
The stupidest part of the matter lies
in the alleged threat to a peaceful transfer of power. If Trump wins, he’ll accept the results and
there will be a peaceful transfer of power from Obama to Trump. If Hillary wins corruptly, there will be a
peaceful transfer of power between Hillary and Obama regardless of Trump’s
opinion. So there is no threat to the
peaceful transfer of power.
But what is more destructive of
republican virtues: making damn sure the returns are proper, or accepting
corrupt results that put an illegitimate office-holder into power? The media seem to think that winning
corruptly and keeping up appearances is more important than getting it right
and fighting corruption.
There are twenty days until the
election. The WikiLeaks scandals will
continue to dribble out, and the Hillary campaign has thrown their last mud at
Trump. They are out of ammo, and Hillary
is going into hiding. Hillary
demonstrated that she is more of the same, and the question before the
electorate is whether Trump is deemed acceptable enough in office to bring
about the change he has called for.
There is time for mature reflection, and for people to get used to Trump’s
warts. Time is against Hillary because her mask is falling away and the hideous face behind the mask is become more
apparent. Being so drained of emotion,
the debate itself will likely not “move the needle” in and of itself. People have time to reflect on what they have
seen and Hillary is out of gas.
Will midnight strike Princess Hillary
before, or after, the election?
-30-
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