2016 Sept 8^th

Some interesting news today comes from “Morning Joe.” The Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Governor Gary Johnson, was being interviewed, and Mike Barnacle, a regular and more liberal commentator, asked Johnson if he were elected president what would he do about Aleppo.  Johnson’s response stunned the assembly; he said, “What is Aleppo.” Barnacle, taken off balance said, “You’re kidding.” Johnson said, “No,” and then Barnacle told him that Aleppo, which had dominated the news for days because of the enormous humanitarian toll there, instructed this former governor of New Mexico about this ancient city in Syria and the role it was playing in the news…all of it apparently news to Johnson. Subsequently, with further questioning, it was apparent that Johnson really had heard of Aleppo but this gaffe will not get him to the 15 percent he needs to get into the debates. He got rich from running a big construction company in New Mexico but thinking under pressure is not a strong point for him.

The evening’s entertainment was provided by Matt Lauer interviewing Trump and Clinton, ostensibly to determine which candidate was more fit to command our military; it was an amateurish mess.  This is not my opinion alone but seems to be the consensus for those observing this event.

Lauer concentrated on questions about Clinton’s emails for nearly half the time he had for her questioning. Then, when the remaining time was short, he kept preceding the meat of his questions with “As briefly as you can…” Clinton could not respond “briefly” to many of the complex policy questions she was asked, so she didn’t look good.

Lauer simply couldn’t handle Trump. He would ask Trump a question, on one occasion it was on the order of “What do you read to prepare for the debates?” Trump “answered” by pointing to some retired generals in the audience and saying that he talks to them. There was no insistence from Lauer, “But I asked you what you read.” When asked about his admiration for Putin, Trump claimed that the Russian was a much better leader than President Obama. Then he said that Putin had said nice things about him and so he would say nice things about Putin. This is Trumps view of diplomacy and its methods.

Hillary Clinton has maintained that her reluctance to hold press conferences is because she is not treated fairly by the press. Anyone who watched Matt Lauer’s performance with its enormous gap between his treatments of these two candidates would have to agree with her. We must hope that the debate moderator will be more professional. That’s not likely, at least it isn’t for the third debate for which the moderator is Fox News’ Chris Wallace. Wallace has been very unhappy with the exit of Roger Aisles from Fox News. Wallace’s praise of Aisles is beyond glowing, “He was the best boss I had in all my years in this business.” Now Aisles is a Trump adviser and Wallace is moderating a debate between Clinton and Trump.

I watched a bit of Trump’s subsequent analysis of the night’s activities. It was simply a litany of self-justification; he said that he had opposed from the war from the very beginning, Hillary Clinton had done a very poor job, and on and on. When Trump holds forth like this, there is no countervailing voice, so he can tell all the lies he pleases. We can be sure there will be many more of his unopposed eruptions, usually unscripted speeches and always to the faithful.