Who Won and Lost?

 Creative Commons Licensed Image "Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump - Caricatures" by Donkey Hotey. Some rights reserved.

With all the prepping for the second debate, and rehearsing the fine art of not answering the questions, somebody should have instructed Trump about the value of blowing one’s nose.

His sniffles began in the CNN debate last night (Oct. 9, 2016) with the opening statement about what a hateful devil of a liar crooked Hillary was, and he seemed in danger of sucking in the town hall audience and those of us at home who were taught the value of a Kleenex.

America’s new romantic hero’s sniffling act took a way from his outrageous disregard for the common courtesies of a debate, such as allowing a rival, no matter how despicable, speak uninterrupted by sniggering aside comments and other distractions, like standing behind her menacingly. He was like a snotty kid rubbing his runny nose on his sleeve, while threatening to put his opponent in jail, after the election, as if this was some kind of Third World presidential race. All the while canvassing the room, like a stallion looking for somebody in the audience to kiss and grope without permission.

It is not unmanly to use a Kleenex or any other tissue of choice.

In another well-rehearsed tactic in the debate prep, playing the false unrelated equivocal reference card, the Republican nominee targeted Bill Clinton. It didn’t seem to matter that his rival sex maniac wasn’t running this year.

Trump was an altar boy compared to the president emeritus, he seemed to be suggesting. Too bad he didn’t compare himself to Caligula. You should have heard the banter in the Roman Baths locker rooms.

The other prize-worthy aspect of Trump’s debate performance last night was his ability to execute the pivot, a political dance step that should qualify him for “Dancing with the Stars,” if not the presidency.

The way the pivot works:

Ask him about Aleppo, and he tells you where he stands on Mosul.

So what if nobody asked about Mosul. It must have been one of those testy issues that keep him awake at three in the morning because it was Hillary’s fault.

While he was busy stiffing his contractors and not paying federal taxes for from here to eternity, or at least 18 years, according to the New York Times’ panel of crooked tax experts, Hillary was bleaching emails in the laundry room in Chappaqua, and being responsible for every problem in the Known World, all of which she caused.

We know that’s true. He has said so many times. So it must be true.

As President, if Trump had a Cuba crisis at 3 in the morning, he would be bombing Mozambique, which is also an island.

For 90 minutes, America’s Lothario pivoted like a whirling dervish, blaming the culprit Hillary as if from a Do Not Forget supermarket shopping list: emails, Iranian deal, trade, lost factories, and the ever lovely Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.

His debate coaches, like America’s Mayor Rudy G., called his pupil’s ability to dance the pivot “smart.’ I call it stupid and offensive.

It cheats those of us mistakenly watching the debate to learn how the two candidates would handle issues that affect our lives, the nation and the world.

I was also disgusted with the toothless moderators -- Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News—who allowed Trump to dance away like a Mohammed Ali from the questions so spontaneously crafted by the undecided voters.

Even when Casanova Trump was suggesting that he would lock her up, crooked Hillary just sat there taking the abuse. It was obviously a strategy of not getting down and dirty in the gutter with the snotty bully. But it plays poorly on TV.

The legendary Ronald the Actor Reagan still had the most effective way to deal with pesky fact-oriented opponents. In the 1980 debates, whenever the peanut farmer/atomic scientist Carter would try to say “Let’s look at the record,” regarding what Reagan had been saying about the environment as California’s governor–“If you’ve seen one redwood tree, you’ve seen them all,” Saint Ronnie would smile and say, “There you go again, bringing up the past.” As if that was a crime!

Hillary’s stage managers need to come up with a better come- backer than that pained smile.

What the debates are really about, of course, is who is the bigger liar in the race to save the nation, which is on the heart-and-lung machine now, according to Lover Boy Trump. At stake is the coveted Jon Lovitz Prize for not telling it like it is, if you remember your “Saturday Night Live.”

Even though she has been called a “congenital liar” by William Safire back in the 1990’s, Hillary is currently being beaten in the race for the Lovitz Prize by America’s Groper by a nose.

I dare say, some of us would still rather vote for Lovitz, or even Tommy Flanagan, for President.

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Marvin Kitman
Oct. 10, 2016