Debate #2: Breaking the Bottom of the Barrel
Two down, one to go for the intrepid Mr. Pitt.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37933-debate-2-breaking-the-bottom-of-the-barrel
In virtually every event featuring Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or the two of them together, a moment inevitably comes along that crystallizes the wearying, humiliating reality of this sorry presidential campaign. Last night's debate was no different. Two days after a 2005 recording of Donald Trump gleefully admitting to serial sexual assault had been played in an endless loop on every network -- "You can do anything," "I moved on her like a bitch" and "Grab them by the pussy" are now part of the political lexicon, and my daughter will read that in school someday -- he was challenged by moderator Anderson Cooper to explain himself. "I didn't say that at all," Trump told Cooper with his bare orange face hanging out for all to see.
Hats over the windmill, folks. You knew it was going to be bad when Trump threw an impromptu press conference an hour before the debate featuring three women who've accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault and sexual harassment and a fourth woman whose accused rapist was represented in court by Hillary. There was no concrete point to this exercise beyond Trump's desire to lob a lit Molotov cocktail into the proceedings. "Donald Trump is no longer running for president," Chris Matthews noted after that sideshow. "He is running to be not as bad as Bill Clinton." The flames got higher mid-debate when Trump threatened to throw his opponent in jail. As Josh Marshall noted, "That's something we expect in kleptocracies and thin democracies where electoral defeat can mean exile, imprisonment or death."...
In my family, when something lucky happens to you, the common response is, "You should go play the Irish sweepstakes." Don't ask me for the etymology of the line, it's just something I've been hearing all my life. I do know this: Hillary Clinton should go out this morning and buy some serious lottery tickets, because she is the luckiest person in the Western hemisphere. Were it not for Trump's gruesome hot mic debacle, and the fact that the man in general is little more than a boorish ball of rancid pub cheese, Secretary Clinton would have almost certainly spent Sunday night trying to tapdance her way around her now-public fawning remarks to Wall Street and the financial industry. Some examples:...
The GOP will continue to unravel in the coming days -- Mike Pence abruptly cancelled a Monday fundraiser in New Jersey after getting the back of Trump's hand on Syria Sunday night, and it is widely whispered that his wife Karen wants out of this hell march worse than Andy Dufresne wanted out of Shawshank -- while the Clinton camp will be content to hunker down and let tabloid journalism go to work on the other guy for a change. One more debate, sponsored by Fox News, looms on the horizon.