Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, August 3, 2019

11

Mountain View News Saturday, August 3, 2019 

DICK POLMAN


MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

PRODUCTION

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Patricia Colonello

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John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

CONTRIBUTORS

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Dr. Tina Paul

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

THE DEMOCRATIC CIRCULAR FIRING 
SQUAD FORGOT ABOUT TRUMP

Deep into Wednesday’s Democratic debate, exasperated 
Republican strategist John Weaver tweeted: “When the 
topic is criminal justice, how are they not talking about 
the criminal in the White House? Huh?”

 Weaver, who detests Trump, nailed it. The Democrats, 
in their predictable and often desperate zeal to attack one 
another with gusto, failed to train any substantive firepower 
on the incumbent - who has presided over a crime 
scene.

 Mired as they were in squabbling among themselves - 
wading deep into the weeds, yet again, on the abstruse 
details of health care policy - Donald Trump got off easy. And much as Trump 
hates CNN, he should send the network a bouquet of flowers, thanking its moderators 
for goading the Democrats to beat each other up and leave him alone.

 Perhaps some TV viewers were galvanized by the intramural attacks on Sen. 
Kamala Harris’ old tenure as California attorney general (she says she’s proud 
of it), and by the attacks on Joe Biden’s old senate record (he says he’s proud of 
it), and by the attacks on Barack Obama - and, by extension, Biden - for deporting 
millions of undocumented immigrants (some candidates seemed far more 
upset about Obama than about Trump). But I doubt it.

 “No Democrat wants to watch our candidates savaging one another. It’s a gift 
to the GOP,” said Simon Rosenberg, a center-left Democratic operative.

 Here’s an example of a timely topic of national importance that never came 
up during either night: Trump has forced Dan Coats, the director of national 
intelligence, to quit his job. Coats, you may recall, was fiercely independent 
in his assessments of threats to our national security, including Russia and its 
meddling in the 2016 election.

 Trump’s ongoing mission is to subsume the intelligence community, to make 
it a partisan instrument of his will at the expense of our national security. Which 
explains why he’s now trying to replace Coats with a congressional toady who 
has limited intelligence experience, and whose longest stint in public life was 
eight years as mayor of a small Texas town.

 This dire development, which fits into the larger narrative about Trump’s authoritarian 
instincts at home and weakness abroad, was certainly worthy of attention. 
The CNN moderators could have asked the candidates about it, or, at 
risk of breaking the moderators’ “rules,” candidates could have found ways to 
bring it up.

 On the domestic front, here’s something else that never came up: A scant 
10 miles from Detroit’s debate auditorium, in the swing county of Macomb, 
autoworkers are losing their jobs because a historic General Motors plant is 
shutting down. Back when Trump campaigned for president in Michigan, he 
declared: “If I’m elected, you won’t lose one plant, you’ll have plants coming 
into this country, you’re going to have jobs again, you won’t lose one plant, I 
promise you that.” The other day, a Trump voter in that community lamented: 
“He said the jobs would stay here. But then I hear about the plant closing. What 
the hell is going on?”

 Over a span of two nights, not one of the 20 Democratic candidates mentioned 
this plant closing - and the chasm between Trump’s promise and performance. 
That might have helped their cause, since wresting Michigan from Trump is a 
top priority in the next Electoral College tally. 

If the CNN moderators had found the time to mention the plant closing (instead 
of asking Harris to fight anew with Biden over busing that took place 40 
years ago), they could’ve teed up a question that the electorate truly cares about: 
How do these Democrats propose to expand the economy and create good jobs 
at good wages - in contrast to Trump’s trickle-down economics and fealty to 
the rich?

 Barely a sentence was devoted to that fundamental issue. By contrast, Twitter 
blew up after Biden greeted Harris on stage by saying, “Go easy on me, kid.” 
Was “kid” an insult? Was it condescending? Was it just Joe being Joe? Was it a 
big deal about nothing? Was it a disaster?

 Meanwhile, Trump says and does worse whenever he breathes. Thanks to the 
Democrats’ dearth of perspective, and CNN’s myopic lust for intramural conflict, 
Trump basically won the debate. 

 We’re left to wonder whether round three, in September, will yield a better 
result.


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

THE DEMOCRATS LOST 
THEIR OWN DEBATES

Is it safe for me and my wife to return 
from our vacation in Eastern Europe?

I don’t know how many Americans who 
tuned into the two Democratic presidential 
debates on CNN this week actually 
paid attention or were able to stay 
awake both nights. 

But anyone who can prove they watched 
all six hours deserves some kind of psychiatric 
help from the government.

Maybe Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren 
and the other progressives who want 
to be president can add free counseling 
for Post-Traumatic Debate Syndrome to 
the list of freebies they’re promising to 
give every American.

I’m still in Austria - or is it Budapest?

But my sources back home tell me that 
for two nights leftist Democrats tooted 
their own tin horns, attacked each others’ 
pie-in-the-sky “Medicare for All” 
health care plans and proved once again 
that not one of them is qualified to be 
president.

When they weren’t calling the president 
a racist or promising to give trillions of 
dollars of free health care college and 
other stuff to Americans or illegal aliens, 
the candidates were railing against the 
usual devils - the NRA, the Koch Brothers, 
greedy drug companies, the evil fossil 
fuel industry, etc.

The Democrats’ top talent looked bad, 
but CNN ought to be ashamed of itself.

Not just for using its Trump-hating trio 
of Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and Don 
Lemon as moderators.

Not just for devising a high-speed debate 
format that gave no one enough time to 
answer, rebut or explain anything.

Not just for not asking any questions 
about the economy or the Mueller 
Report.

CNN should be ashamed for producing 
a lousy presidential debate like it was a 
Super Bowl telecast.

Ten debaters were introduced each 
night like they were the starters on a pro 
football team, when actually they were 
two or three star players and a bunch of 
scrubs and walk-ons who’ll never make 
the cut.

The big winner on night one was Elizabeth 
Warren, the shrill progressive professor 
who has written comprehensive 
plans to fix everything from college loan 
debt to climate change.

Warren and her arm-waving soulmate, 
angry Bernie Sanders, became a socialist 
tag-team.

They spent the night defending their 
costly left-wing health care pipe-dreams 
from the occasionally sensible attacks of 
moderate lefties like millionaire businessman 
and ex-Congressman John 
Delaney and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio.

Delaney and Ryan, like Mayor Pete Buttigieg 
and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, 
had their moments - seconds, really.

The only real entertainment at the Tuesday 
night debate was provided by Mary 
Williamson, the new age spiritualist 
and self-help author whose hippie rants 
about “dark psychic forces” and political 
failure in Washington made her the 
most Googled name of the night.

The second debate in Detroit had more 
star power, but even fewer laughs and 
just as many unlikable and humorless 
Democrats making dozens of 
un-keepable promises and gratuitous 
Trump slurs. 

Joe Biden brought his C game Wednesday 
and was much better prepared.

But Kamala Harris and a supporting 
gang headed by Corey Booker, Julian 
Castro and Kirsten Gillibrand went after 
him all night like a pack of jackals attacking 
an old water buffalo.

Biden was left standing, barely. He made 
at least seven gaffes and looked old.

He had trouble 
defending the 
now politically 
incorrect positions 
he held on 
crime, school 
busing, the drug 
war and working 
women during 
his 40 plus years 
in DC.

It wasn’t pretty. If there is a big sympathy 
vote out there in the American electorate, 
Old Joe won it.

Meanwhile, Harris got some of her own 
nasty medicine.

She was badly wounded when Tulsi 
Gabbard, the congresswoman from Hawaii, 
suddenly brought up some of the 
un-progressive highlights of her career 
as California’s tough-on-crime Attorney 
General.

Winners on Night Two? Biden, by default. 
Gabbard. Maybe Booker or Castro, 
if you grade on a generous curve. The 
rest were losers.

For the week, Prof. Warren was the big 
winner, if you don’t count President 
Trump. 

The big losers were Harris and the Democrat 
Party, which showed the country 
just how broken and crazy it is.


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