Oct 5
VP debate 2016: My take-away
So, last night’s Vice-Presidential debate was contentious, lots of arguing and lots of Senator Kaine and Governor Pence talking over each other. The folks on MSNBC were complaining, analyzing, intellectualizing, world without end, amen. Normally, I like all that banter, but last night it was just annoying. If not for Lawrence O’Donnell, I’d have been vexed enough to change the channel. I’ve really come to respect and admire Lawrence O’Donnell, he sees Trump for the fraud that he is and calls him out on it. He and I shared a post-debate take-away…
Throughout the debate, Senator Kaine confronted Governor Pence with all of the outlandish and dangerous things said by both Trump and Pence during the campaign. Sometimes Pence tried to deflect, others he tried to pivot and get back on message, but often he simply denied with righteous disdain that no such thing was ever said, while strongly implying that Senator Kaine was being crude for even bringing up such muck. Now, being a lawyer, Senator Kaine knew that you never ask questions to which you don’t already know the answers. So, in that vein, he made statements that he knew to be correct. Donald Trump said, women should face “some form of punishment” for seeking abortions. Pence then vehemently denied that Trump ever said such a thing. Of course, he had said it. Governor Pence said that “inarguably Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader in his country than President Obama is in this country.” Again, Governor Pence strongly denied saying anything like that, but he did, and not long ago. He flat out lied over and over again. It wasn’t two candidates differently interpreting nuanced policy, it was one being factual and one not.
Lying bothers me, particularly stupid lying, which seems to be the Trump campaign’s favorite sort of lying. They say wildly untrue things, things that can be easily fact-checked, yet they say them anyway! History is factual, it isn’t flexible, it isn’t open to interpretation. You can’t say, “Well, if you look at Abraham Lincoln’s presidency like this, the Civil War never actually happened.” That is, unless you live in Trump-land. In Trump-land, anything goes, as we saw in last night’s VP debate.
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