Millions whom Scott Ritter did not reach through the June 12 Schiller Institute National Press Club event “to scare them to death” about the danger of nuclear war, will have been scared instead by watching their choices for President “debate” on Thursday evening. The argument that dominated the June 27 debate was: Which of the two, President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump, was “by far” the worst President in American history. The debate made clear that combined, they are, “by far,” the worst choice for President ever given to the American electorate; and this was by far the worst presidential event in American history. Both Biden and Trump wanted to get down in the gutter, but hopefully there is no street gutter in America which would tolerate this debate.
America appears to have no prospective President, except by the rising of its people around leaders who can shape a new Presidency. The sight of a President visibly bound by age, and by rage, supposedly the commander-in-chief in a world war, should have frightened the audience.
Biden’s predictably pathetic performance instantly served as the green light for top British and American Establishment political figures and media to demand Biden step aside and allow another Democratic candidate to take his place. Patrick Lane, senior digital editor of The Economist of Britain, ripped into “Joe Biden’s wretched showing in last night’s presidential debate,” asking and answering: “Now it’s whether he should run at all. We think not.” A related The Economist article pronounced that “Joe Biden’s horrific debate performance casts his entire candidacy into doubt,” noting that he delivered “one of the worst debate performances in modern history.” The Times of London concurred that the Biden campaign was “plunged into crisis.”
Across the lake, CNN apparently got the memo (“Biden Acknowledges Weak Debate Performance as Democratic Questions Swirl Over Whether He’ll Stay in the Presidential Race”). In their panel discussion after the debate, Van Jones said, “He [Biden] did not do well at all”; and veteran Obama strategist David Axelrod said, “I think you’re going to hear discussions that, I don’t know will lead to anything, but there are going to be discussions about whether he should continue.” The Christian Broadcast Network (aka “700 Club) ran the headline, “Democrats Reportedly Panicking over Biden’s Shaky Debate Performance.”
Virtually nothing said by Donald Trump was true; it was the bombastic tales of a Jack Falstaff. Most of what was said by Joe Biden was the bungling platitudes of a scheming Polonius, but delivered in a rushed, incoherent slur which sometimes ended in a loss of memory of what he was saying, and with an unchanging expression of blank fury. In Biden’s very first answer to a question, he tried to talk about Medicare negotiating with Big Pharma for lower prices, but forgot what he was saying, went silent and downcast for 15 seconds, and then burst out, “I’m battling Medicare.”
That failure set alarm bells ringing, apparently instantly, throughout the ranks of Democratic Party “leaders” and fundraisers.
The most urgent issue, the danger of world war, was scarcely addressed as such. Trump said that if President Putin of Russia had respected the American President (Biden), the NATO- Russia war would never have happened; and that he, Trump, would somehow be able to settle it between his election and his inauguration. “$200 billion to Ukraine, $200 billion is a lot of money,” he said. He said that as a result of Biden’s failures, there was a danger of World War III.
Biden shouted triumphally, with the greatest emphasis and affect of anything he said all night, “Putin is a war criminal. We’re the most admired country in the world. We have the greatest military in the history of the world.”
There was little content that any viewer could take away from the debate. Rather the viewer confronted the hatred of the two men for each other, their disdain for the world outside the United States; their disdain for the American voters to whom they lied throughout; their incompetence for any serious problem, their projected inability to consider “the other side” of any problem, or ever to acknowledge having misjudged any danger.
