GIVE HIM THE BOTTLE WHEN HE GOT DRY, AND BRUSH AWAY THE BLUE TAIL FLY

The difference between left-leaning and right-leaning reactions about last night’s VP “debate” was so vast that the two sides might as well have been watching two different events.  National Review, for instance, published several short takes from its contributors, all of which concluded that Pence destroyed his opponent.  Did Pence “mop the floor” with Harris, as one of them put it?

It didn’t sound that way to me, although my wife turned the radio off about halfway through the program.  Frankly, I was relieved.  But the next morning, when I checked other sources, there weren’t many observers outside the Trump bubble who saw much mopping going on.  As Paul Simon observed in the waning days of the Nixon Administration, “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” 

For what it’s worth, here’s what I heard.  It’s fair to assume that I disregarded the rest.

First, Pence’s “debate” performance demonstrated that Trump is not uniquely obnoxious.  Or rather, it demonstrated that while Trump is indeed uniquely obnoxious, the difference is more a matter of degree than kind.  Let’s face it, Republican men are insufferably rude.  Why?  Because they got bored with pretending to value virtue and civility.  What fun is that?

Just in the nick of time, Donald Trump showed them a better way.  He gave the entire GOP, or at least the men in the party, permission to be assholes.  They tried it, and they liked it.  It turns out that it’s a lot easier to have attitude than to have principles, especially when a vocal segment of the electorate eats it up.  Gotta look manly for the Base.   

Of course, only men can be manly.  Manly behavior from a woman would get her labeled as a bitch.  In fact, any woman who has the temerity to disagree with a Republican man is a bitch by definition.  Bitches get stitches.  Real men prefer handmaidens!  (It’ll be interesting to watch Nikki Haley try to thread this needle in 2024.)

Second, it’s time to disband the Commission on Presidential Debates (the group that organizes these ridiculous affairs).  In their minds, it’s still 1960, and the candidates are Kennedy and Nixon – polite, knowledgeable, and articulate.  They learned nothing from the 2016 Trump-Clinton debates, or from the first Trump-Biden debate last week.  If presidential debates are worth doing at all (an iffy proposition at best), then Democrats ought to insist on organizers who understand 21st century political, cultural, and technological realities.

Third, Mike Pence looked unwell.  It’s a matter of record that he’s been exposed in multiple ways to the Trump superspreader event.  Whether that accounts for what appeared to be pink eye and a cold sore, I don’t know, but conjunctivitis, at least, is a possible symptom of COVID.  Pence recited his talking points mechanically, but his obvious contempt for the two women on the stage with him was manly, I guess, in the Republican sense of the term. 

My final grades:  Harris’ forbearance earned her a qualified A-.  It’s no use calling out Pence, but I wish she’d called out the totally useless moderator.  I wish she, or Biden last week, had said to the moderator du jour, “Are you getting paid for this?  Because if you are, you’re stealing money.  C’mon, do your job.”

That moderator, Susan Page, gets an F for failing to do her job.  Mike Pence also gets an F, for being a typical Republican asshole. 

The fly gets an award for best performance by an insect in a supporting role.