Once again, the Cretin News Network and the overage yuppies still stupid enough to continue to work there lived down to my expectations: no mic control, no holding El Jefe Del Mar A Lardo to the rules, and Alex Wagner proved how desperate she is not to get dropped at MSNBC like happened back in 2008 (I just canceled recording her show). I’ll laugh if he wins and they and the rest of the DC Press Corpse find themselves looking out from the wrong side of the barbed wire fence at the tent city in West Texas they’re confined to. They all fucking well deserve it, but we don’t.
Obama stumbled out of the gate in his first debate with Mitt Romney in 2012. Ronald Reagan was terrible in his first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984. Both went on to win their general elections.
My sense is that they overprepared Joe Biden. A lot less debate prep, mainly covering contingency planning for what to do if Trump did something crazy, and I think the President would have done better.
"It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has."
His prep team should have known about this. He has certainly shown this technique enough over the years for anyone with any sense to have noticed. Shame on them for focusing on facts and figures over narrative and ignoring the elephant in the room - a serial liar with a talent for gaslighting.
I'd say it's also especially effective on someone who values facts and truth and has a fundamental belief that others do too. It confounds a basic belief about humanity, so it's particularly unsettling... baffling even.
It's not rationalization to state the truth even if there are other truths out there. Not everything has one cause and one cause alone. Pretending so is just done for the sake of being snarky.
Not what I said. I think Trump is an elderly man with poor cognitive abilities who lies as a tactic and way of life and Biden is an elderly man who is well meaning and probably no longer in top form but still brighter and more competent than Trump has been for many years. I'm sorry you can't tell the difference between actively lying and confusion in the face of torrential lies; it must affect your personal life dreadfully. And thus saying, I verify my own prior statement that people who value truth and facts find it difficult to just ignore those who lie with smooth facility. Say whatever is the nastiest thing you can to this now, because I bow out as I probably should have prior to dignifying your blurt with an answer. Bu-bye!
He tried to say too much too fast and his stutter prevailed. They should have just prepped him to say in rebuttal: "Everything he just said is a lie and really didn't answer the question. You can all do a simple fact check. Now I will actually address the question--"
They should have prepared him on both first response and rebuttal with maybe three major talking points for each probable question and had him say "First...Second...Third." He did do this occasionally, but tried to put too much into each point.
Oh my gosh. All the doom and gloom. Biden is not an idiot. He’s been doing this for 831 years. He knows the stakes. Now, let’s get behind him. Ya’ll want the magas to win?
What you said! Yes!! These commentators and kibitzers seem to have no clue that something real is at stake here. I've got my fingers and toes crossed that enough of the country knows better.
Great , now I can't sleep since I tuned into the debacle & heard the Scotus news today. Biden should have called in sick with a cold virus & spared himself an evening of unfair criticism. I wish the other guy had a lie detector that shocked his every lie & left him like a piece of burnt toast. Biden is a good man & has been a great president showing what empathy & leadership can achieve. The media were so off course with a few exceptions , I am taking comfort from Lawrence that debates have never been important & this was not even a debate anyway. The orange menace deserves punishment not Joe Biden. Tonight was a painful episode in current affairs . We must continue to fight for justice. Evil is a strong adversary betting we can't win.
"It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has."
aha! finally somebody smart has expressed her sense that most of it was the stutter...Biden was shocked and overwhelmed, which just added anther layer to his disadvantage and gave him yet another reason to stammer more severely.
characteristically for me, I taped her every night because she's cute, but stopped playing the recordings back when I saw they were just more of the same talking points (yeah, we have them too). she's dead to me now, as is all of CNN, the Zombie Channel where none of them know they're actually Zombies.
If Biden had called in sick, there would have been a hue and cry over him doing that. NOTHING ever satisfies the pundit class, who seldom know what the hell they are talking about.
Quite seriously, they could have easily enough had a light on the front of the podium that blinked red when a lie was being told. Of course, they'd over react at times, but explain up front it's to the best of a team's ability to judge and that written fact checks can be had after the debate.
Thanks TC. We bounce higher than this—we always have. We are gritty, can-do Americans, so let’s put our back into it, get our Irish up, or Brooklyn up, or *whatever you got* up, and pull in the same direction. THAT’S how we move forward. The journey doesn’t stop cuz there’s some mud in the road. We’ve come through worse than this. Onward.
CanNOT imagine why the limp-brained moderators didn't cut Trump's mic each time he DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION POSED. They should have stopped his disgusting lie-filled rants and attacks and insisted he stick to the question asked. Biden? It seems when you own a boatload of integrity you're ill-prepared for the onslaught of an opponent who shows up with none.
I'm very far from being a conspiracy theorist, but after seeing the horrifying "rules" ( or, as it happened, the lack thereof) and having witnessed the "performance" (and certainly lack thereof), it's not so hard to start thinking about the "planners" doing a certain amount of winking and nodding while they made their plans. I'm not even saying they entirely KNEW on a conscious level that that's what they were doing, but the terms overwhelmingly favored TFF to begin with. once they announced "no fact checking," my feeling was that they'd folded and gave TFF "license to lie" start-to-finish. consequently, as much as he lies in his so-called "rallies," last night was the most prodigious feat of lying I've ever seen. but nobody (save Joe Biden) was in a position to confront those lies, and Biden was struggling with his OWN problems.
but the complete lack of trying to enforce the one thing they were obligated to enforce...it just smacks too much of a corrupt TV cop looking away and chewing gum while somebody takes a beating (or a murder or whatever).
look at who pays these people. we've been over this territory many times, but the chain ends with John Malone.
I hope the dust settles sooner rather than later.. Joe needs to improve and quickly. We know he CAN do better because he has - many times. I think perhaps he was over coached and also has a cold or some other illness that was dragging him down.. but somehow he has to find a way to make another strong appearance. The number of times he should have responded to Trump's lies with corrections and did not was just staggering.. Just one small example - giving Social Security and Medicare to illegal immigrants? millions of them?? Ronald Reagan could have said "There you go again" with a head shake and a smile. He didn't need a booming voice - he just needed to listen and respond calmly - showing he could stay attentive. Hindsight is 2020 I know.. but he better figure out a persona that will appeal to voters deliver it. I love Joe and I think he'll be the nominee but he can do better. I agree with you that the press is unfair and unkind.. and I didn't expect much from CNN.
That is for sure, Tom. I would suggest that all following here read Rick Wilson's post this morning. Another voice of reason..
“The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
I respectfully disagree. Joe blew it. I love him, but Americans will not vote for a feeble man. They just won't. I have a whole Shakespearean explanation in my head about how Joe will get his just recognition in 100 years, and Trump will rot in hell, but that won't work with today's voters. Jill and Joe need to cast aside their hubris, or they will cast our democracy to the sharks of DJT.
Yes, Joe blew it. But the election isn’t tomorrow. There are over four months to campaign vigorously, not only for us to get to work but Joe, too. He can recover. He can get out on the stump and show the public he’s made of sterner stuff. Please, Kathe, buck up and let’s all put our shoulders into it!
I agree with your assessment, especially because today's voters want politics and politicians to be entertainers. The dumbing down has been ongoing as people have moved away from reading books and newspapers, which require reflection, to being awash in a sea of performative politics, news reporting, and unchallenged chatter. But I will continue to fight the fascists wherever and whenever I can and leave it to the DNC and the Bidens to figure out a path forward because there's more at stake than the presidency.
"It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has."
It kills me to say it, but I agree with you, Kathe. If everyone who watched the debate had read the transcript instead of viewing it onscreen, their assessment would be utterly different. But the debate was a disaster, and one the MAGAts will make hay out of for months — unless Mr. Biden does the heroic thing and the DNC wakes up and gets it poop in a group, STAT.
CNN's Daniel Dale did fine fact checking of the entire mess. Nobody is going to see it, because it was published on Twitter under his own account, available here:
The key thing is about not giving up. What would be the point of that. Failure simply cannot be an option. Joe is fine - he's the best president we've had in a long time, and Trump is evil incarnate.
I'm an optimist as well. Realistic, pragmatic, but above all, optimistic.
One more time from Winston Churchill. “I am an optimist. It does not seem of much use to be anything else.”
Exactly right!
Yes, Winston the Great Mumbler.
Obama stumbled out of the gate in his first debate with Mitt Romney in 2012. Ronald Reagan was terrible in his first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984. Both went on to win their general elections.
My sense is that they overprepared Joe Biden. A lot less debate prep, mainly covering contingency planning for what to do if Trump did something crazy, and I think the President would have done better.
excellent observation.
From Dr. Heather Cox Richardson today:
"It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has."
His prep team should have known about this. He has certainly shown this technique enough over the years for anyone with any sense to have noticed. Shame on them for focusing on facts and figures over narrative and ignoring the elephant in the room - a serial liar with a talent for gaslighting.
I'd say it's also especially effective on someone who values facts and truth and has a fundamental belief that others do too. It confounds a basic belief about humanity, so it's particularly unsettling... baffling even.
Now that's an interesting rationalization. Quite creative, actually.
It's not rationalization to state the truth even if there are other truths out there. Not everything has one cause and one cause alone. Pretending so is just done for the sake of being snarky.
So Trump "lies" but Biden is merely "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory". Yup. Go with that.
Not what I said. I think Trump is an elderly man with poor cognitive abilities who lies as a tactic and way of life and Biden is an elderly man who is well meaning and probably no longer in top form but still brighter and more competent than Trump has been for many years. I'm sorry you can't tell the difference between actively lying and confusion in the face of torrential lies; it must affect your personal life dreadfully. And thus saying, I verify my own prior statement that people who value truth and facts find it difficult to just ignore those who lie with smooth facility. Say whatever is the nastiest thing you can to this now, because I bow out as I probably should have prior to dignifying your blurt with an answer. Bu-bye!
Biden has lied his whole life. To ignore that is itself dishonest.
He tried to say too much too fast and his stutter prevailed. They should have just prepped him to say in rebuttal: "Everything he just said is a lie and really didn't answer the question. You can all do a simple fact check. Now I will actually address the question--"
They should have prepared him on both first response and rebuttal with maybe three major talking points for each probable question and had him say "First...Second...Third." He did do this occasionally, but tried to put too much into each point.
Exactly I have been all over the net saying exactly this. I hope "they" hear these things and figure it out.
My statement last night exactly.
Oh my gosh. All the doom and gloom. Biden is not an idiot. He’s been doing this for 831 years. He knows the stakes. Now, let’s get behind him. Ya’ll want the magas to win?
What you said! Yes!! These commentators and kibitzers seem to have no clue that something real is at stake here. I've got my fingers and toes crossed that enough of the country knows better.
Biden is a vampire? Is he one of those sparkly glowy types, or just the morose buzzkill vampire type?
Great , now I can't sleep since I tuned into the debacle & heard the Scotus news today. Biden should have called in sick with a cold virus & spared himself an evening of unfair criticism. I wish the other guy had a lie detector that shocked his every lie & left him like a piece of burnt toast. Biden is a good man & has been a great president showing what empathy & leadership can achieve. The media were so off course with a few exceptions , I am taking comfort from Lawrence that debates have never been important & this was not even a debate anyway. The orange menace deserves punishment not Joe Biden. Tonight was a painful episode in current affairs . We must continue to fight for justice. Evil is a strong adversary betting we can't win.
From Dr. Heather Cox Richardson today:
"It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has."
aha! finally somebody smart has expressed her sense that most of it was the stutter...Biden was shocked and overwhelmed, which just added anther layer to his disadvantage and gave him yet another reason to stammer more severely.
the over-preparation was also a very real thing.
Over and mis-
I commented before reading your post. I feel better now, thanks. I stopped watching Alex after her first week.
Glad I could help.
characteristically for me, I taped her every night because she's cute, but stopped playing the recordings back when I saw they were just more of the same talking points (yeah, we have them too). she's dead to me now, as is all of CNN, the Zombie Channel where none of them know they're actually Zombies.
If Biden had called in sick, there would have been a hue and cry over him doing that. NOTHING ever satisfies the pundit class, who seldom know what the hell they are talking about.
Lawrence was the adult in the room through the evening. What is wrong with McCaskell?
Now you know why she's an ex-Senator.
Quite seriously, they could have easily enough had a light on the front of the podium that blinked red when a lie was being told. Of course, they'd over react at times, but explain up front it's to the best of a team's ability to judge and that written fact checks can be had after the debate.
Thanks TC. We bounce higher than this—we always have. We are gritty, can-do Americans, so let’s put our back into it, get our Irish up, or Brooklyn up, or *whatever you got* up, and pull in the same direction. THAT’S how we move forward. The journey doesn’t stop cuz there’s some mud in the road. We’ve come through worse than this. Onward.
CanNOT imagine why the limp-brained moderators didn't cut Trump's mic each time he DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION POSED. They should have stopped his disgusting lie-filled rants and attacks and insisted he stick to the question asked. Biden? It seems when you own a boatload of integrity you're ill-prepared for the onslaught of an opponent who shows up with none.
I'm very far from being a conspiracy theorist, but after seeing the horrifying "rules" ( or, as it happened, the lack thereof) and having witnessed the "performance" (and certainly lack thereof), it's not so hard to start thinking about the "planners" doing a certain amount of winking and nodding while they made their plans. I'm not even saying they entirely KNEW on a conscious level that that's what they were doing, but the terms overwhelmingly favored TFF to begin with. once they announced "no fact checking," my feeling was that they'd folded and gave TFF "license to lie" start-to-finish. consequently, as much as he lies in his so-called "rallies," last night was the most prodigious feat of lying I've ever seen. but nobody (save Joe Biden) was in a position to confront those lies, and Biden was struggling with his OWN problems.
but the complete lack of trying to enforce the one thing they were obligated to enforce...it just smacks too much of a corrupt TV cop looking away and chewing gum while somebody takes a beating (or a murder or whatever).
look at who pays these people. we've been over this territory many times, but the chain ends with John Malone.
do I sound crazy? that's an actual question.
No, you don't sound crazy at all.
I hope the dust settles sooner rather than later.. Joe needs to improve and quickly. We know he CAN do better because he has - many times. I think perhaps he was over coached and also has a cold or some other illness that was dragging him down.. but somehow he has to find a way to make another strong appearance. The number of times he should have responded to Trump's lies with corrections and did not was just staggering.. Just one small example - giving Social Security and Medicare to illegal immigrants? millions of them?? Ronald Reagan could have said "There you go again" with a head shake and a smile. He didn't need a booming voice - he just needed to listen and respond calmly - showing he could stay attentive. Hindsight is 2020 I know.. but he better figure out a persona that will appeal to voters deliver it. I love Joe and I think he'll be the nominee but he can do better. I agree with you that the press is unfair and unkind.. and I didn't expect much from CNN.
I agree, Tom. There is no option except to keep moving forward and give this election everything we've got. The alternative is unacceptable.
That is for sure, Tom. I would suggest that all following here read Rick Wilson's post this morning. Another voice of reason..
“The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
Rick Wilson is good every day, but particularly today.
The best post-debate commentary I've read yet. Thank you.
I respectfully disagree. Joe blew it. I love him, but Americans will not vote for a feeble man. They just won't. I have a whole Shakespearean explanation in my head about how Joe will get his just recognition in 100 years, and Trump will rot in hell, but that won't work with today's voters. Jill and Joe need to cast aside their hubris, or they will cast our democracy to the sharks of DJT.
Yes, Joe blew it. But the election isn’t tomorrow. There are over four months to campaign vigorously, not only for us to get to work but Joe, too. He can recover. He can get out on the stump and show the public he’s made of sterner stuff. Please, Kathe, buck up and let’s all put our shoulders into it!
I agree with your assessment, especially because today's voters want politics and politicians to be entertainers. The dumbing down has been ongoing as people have moved away from reading books and newspapers, which require reflection, to being awash in a sea of performative politics, news reporting, and unchallenged chatter. But I will continue to fight the fascists wherever and whenever I can and leave it to the DNC and the Bidens to figure out a path forward because there's more at stake than the presidency.
From Dr. Heather Cox Richardson today:
"It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has."
It kills me to say it, but I agree with you, Kathe. If everyone who watched the debate had read the transcript instead of viewing it onscreen, their assessment would be utterly different. But the debate was a disaster, and one the MAGAts will make hay out of for months — unless Mr. Biden does the heroic thing and the DNC wakes up and gets it poop in a group, STAT.
Donated. And I’ve got 500 postcards to write. Starting to form writing parties.
We. Must. Defeat. ttfg.
AMEN AMEN AMEN, TC!!
CNN's Daniel Dale did fine fact checking of the entire mess. Nobody is going to see it, because it was published on Twitter under his own account, available here:
https://x.com/ddale8
Get him on the interview circuit asap!!!
tried, but no dice
The key thing is about not giving up. What would be the point of that. Failure simply cannot be an option. Joe is fine - he's the best president we've had in a long time, and Trump is evil incarnate.
I'm an optimist as well. Realistic, pragmatic, but above all, optimistic.
NOT ONE STEP BACK!
Lighten up and dig in! Biden
will be fine. None of you here
have an off day(s) and miss opportunities? Feel rotten?