Hillary wins first debate easily
There are lots of people who’re tired of the mudslinging, the cheap shots and the below-the-belt attacks that have plagued the presidential campaign.
They want it over.
But a record 84 million Americans tuned into last week’s debate just to see the mudslinging, the cheap shots and the below-the-belt attacks.
America wasn’t disappointed.
For much of the 90-minute affair, Donald J. Trump, the master-of-the-mudsling, curiously sniffed and snorted, while Hillary Clinton baited him at every turn.
Near the end of the debate, Trump declared, “I think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. I have a winning temperament.”
That’s the peculiar end of a sentence, which began with Trump complaining about the “hundreds of millions of dollars,” Hillary Clinton had spent on advertising against him.
Trump simply doesn’t understand how preposterous it is to complain, in effect, that “she keeps picking on me,” and within seconds, brag that he’s the only adult on stage.
Besides, Trump’s mere mention of his “winning” temperament set off titters in the room – and no doubt across the country.
Especially since he interrupted Clinton 51 times during the debate.
Trump’s serious lack of temperament was on full view a little later.
Clinton skillfully brought up the onetime Miss Universe – Alicia Machado, of Venezuela – who’d claimed that Trump (while he owned the Miss Universe pageant) had verbally abused her by calling her “Miss Piggy,” because she’d picked up weight after she’d won her crown, and “Miss Housekeeper,” only because she’s a Latina.
(The following morning, Trump complained to Fox News that Machado had gained “massive weight,” and that, “We had a real problem with her.”)
Yet, during the debate, when hit with Clinton’s surprise attack, Trump’s inability to think on his feet was obvious.
He took the bait, and responded with another one of those “she keeps picking on me” statements. “You know, Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials,” he replied.
Then he carelessly brought up his messy, 10-year feud with comedian Rosie O’Donnell.
At that point, the adult Donald J. Trump fled to the wings of the debate auditorium, and little Donny Trump replaced him.
“…somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.”
In one sentence, Trump indicated that he was speaking for everybody.
That, “nobody feels sorry for” Rosie O’Donnell.
Not true.
It is true, that back in 2006, O’Donnell made some mighty disparaging comments about Trump’s supposedly phony “moral authority,” when he went to bat for a Miss USA pageant winner, who’d gotten into a bit of personal trouble.
O’Donnell was a panelist on the ABC program – “The View” – at the time, and she mocked him for his alleged dalliances with future wives, while he was still married.
At the time, Trump showed anything but a “winning” temperament.
He not only threatened to sue O’Donnell (“I look forward to taking lots of money from my nice fat little Rosie.”), but he went public with a brutal onslaught of childish responses.
“I’d look her in that fat, ugly face of hers, and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired,'” he said in one video.
So, when Clinton came armed on debate night with the fact that Trump had referred to women as “pigs, slobs and dogs,” and then she buttressed that with the fact that a former Miss Universe had posited some proof that he’d verbally abused her – he could have easily avoided trouble.
He’s Donald J. Trump.
So, he did what Donald J. Trump always does.
He claimed those women deserved his wrath. That they asked for it, and he gave it to them.
Alicia Machado had done nothing more than gain some weight, so that was the last straw.
Trump aspires to become the President of the United States of America.
Someday he might have the levers of enormous power within his grasp.
There’s one thing of which I am certain.
Adult temperament is, and always will be, beyond his reach.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net