Post Election Blues: Notes From the Resistance

President Barack Obama said it. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W. VA) said it. Lots of Republicans said it.

“As difficult as it is for anyone to lose an election, the American people have spoken and Donald Trump is our President-elect,” was the way Manchin phrased it. 

It is hard for me to accept comments like that. 

Let’s be clear. The people did not elect Trump. The system did. 

More people in the United States preferred Hillary Clinton’s vision of America than Trump’s. Yet, I’m resigned to the fact he will become our 45th president January 20 because we don’t elect our commander-in-chief by popular vote. We follow the arcane rules set out in the Constitution which mandates election by the Electoral College.

So the recalibration of America has begun. Trumpsters are finding out that campaign pledges do not automatically turn into governing realities. Trump has begun the tectonic shift from promise-them-anything to here’s-what-I-can-do (assuming his Republican partners will go along with him, or maybe even they will dictate to him their vision of GOP rule). Already he is backpedaling on centerpieces of his campaign: the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, building a wall between Mexico and the United States, the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants and the “draining of the swamp” in Washington of lobbyists and special interests. 

If Only Hillary Had Read The New York Times: While cleaning out some old newspapers Thursday, I came across an interview of political analyst Thomas Frank that ran earlier this year, on May 16, in the Sunday Times magazine section. 

In one paragraph, here’s a six-months-in-advance autopsy of what went wrong with Clinton’s campaign: “If Trump does have a chance, it resides with working-­class voters. The obvious Democratic move would be to reach out to those voters and tell them to come home to the Democratic Party, offer them all sorts of New Deal-­style benefits. I doubt she is going to do that.” http://nyti.ms/1sr99E2)

Voters in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania did more than just award Trump the presidency. By returning incumbent Republicans from their states to the Senate, they handed the incoming president GOP control of both houses of Congress, thus depriving the American public of any real checks and balances in the executive and legislative branches of government, and, once a new Supreme Court justice is nominated and confirmed, control of the judicial branch as well. 

It is hard to follow Trump’s thinking. In his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday he endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision condoning same-sex marriage in all states. At the same time he maintained he would pick a new justice who would vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in all states. Does he truly believe such a socially conservative justice would not also be inclined to vote to rescind LGBT rights? 

Trump was correct in saying overturning Roe V. Wade would not eliminate a woman’s right to choose as each state would be free to make its own determination. Does Trump not realize that tens of millions of economically challenged women would be burdened by costly, time-consuming travel to states that permit abortions, a trip and expense many of them would not be able to undertake? 

Moreover, once Roe v. Wade would be overturned, one may expect Republicans would ignore their long-held belief in states’ rights and seek a national ban on abortions. 

So pray for Trump’s continued good health, and, for that matter, the health of Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy. 

As revolting as Trump might be, his replacement by vice president Mike Pence would be disastrous for any semblance of progressive government. Pence is doctrinaire, a person who openly says he is first a Christian, second a conservative and third a Republican. As governor of Indiana and as a congressman he has shown a willingness to enact measures that put his faith above the Constitution and any compassion for the underprivileged. 

Roughly 42% of eligible voters—about 97 million—chose to stay home last Tuesday. One wonders how many of them enjoy the benefits of Obamacare which may be taken away from them now that Republicans will be in control.

Finally, some sound medical advice from Dr. Ben Carson:  He has indicated he would not welcome a cabinet position because he is unqualified to run a government department.  Ya think? 

How come this didn’t occur to him when he put himself forward as a candidate to run the whole government as president? What makes him think Trump is any more qualified? Running a diversified business is far from the same as running the U.S. government and being the leader of the free world. 

I fear for our democracy, not because of Trump alone and his zany ideas about climate control, freedom of the press,  the use of the Internet to obtain news, his fabrications of the truth, his bro-love of Russia, military planning, and immigration. My biggest fear is that Trump will surround himself with repressive-minded associates who will seek to erode voting rights that would severely impede our ability to replace his and subsequent Republican administrations.

During the campaign, The Times asked Aasif Mandvi, the comedian, actor and writer best known for his work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, if he was frightened by the anti-Muslim rhetoric. 

He said, “I’m not afraid that Trump is going to kick out all of the Muslims. What makes me afraid is the trickle-down effect of that kind of rhetoric and that now, suddenly, it has become O.K. to be racist. We’re normalizing it, and therefore you see more violence against people of color and L.G.B.T. people. The culture has been given permission to exorcise all of its darkest fears and can now blame immigrants or minorities for whatever problems white people are facing. Whether or not Trump wins, we’ve already been infused with this. This camp has already shown itself.” http://nyti.ms/2dtcZHa

If you’re in the mood for it, click on the following clip from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. It’s a primer for how democracy can be easily eroded: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/t6o6ck/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-how-south-africa-could-prepare-the-u-s--for-president-trump?xrs=share_copy_email

Republican Convention Edition

Full disclosure: I find it hard to watch all of the Republican National Convention proceedings, what with all the Hillary bashing and the almost comical ways security and ordinary attendees are trying to muzzle protesters’ voices and faces. I suspect I will find it similarly difficult to follow the Democrats chance next week.

Unless, unless Hillary Clinton and her convention planners have absorbed lessons from the Republicans and focus their remarks not on a continuous assault on Donald Trump’s lack of qualifications to be president but rather on how she and a Democratic Congress would invigorate the economy, safeguard the homeland and the freedom of our allies, protect healthcare and social security benefits, and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. They will need to provide specifics, not just lip service. 

Any intelligent Democrat or objective-thinking Independent, and even some Republicans, already know the danger of a Trump presidency, so an anti-Donald-day in-day-out convention to pump up the faithful is not necessary. What would turn on undecided voters and recalcitrant Bernie Sanders supporters would be a message of populist change. 

On MSNBC’s Monday night coverage of the Republican National Convention, Nicolle Wallace, the former communications director for President George W. Bush, said the election will boil down to a choice between a candidate (Trump) whose temperament to be commander in chief is questioned versus a candidate (Clinton) whose honesty and integrity to be commander in chief is questioned. 

I think that’s a fair assessment. 

Trump’s Twitter response to Melania-gate (“Good news is Melania’s speech got more publicity than any in the history of politics especially if you believe that all press is good press!”) is validation of a quote attributed to P.T. Barnum: “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right.” 

FYI, Stephen Colbert has got his mojo back. If you haven’t seen his live broadcasts after each convention session, complete with a resurrection of his arch-conservative Colbert Report alter ego from Comedy Central, download segments on YouTube or from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert site. 

Monday night he brought back his “Tonight’s WØrd” bit with a twist. Instead of “truthiness,” Colbert lampooned “Trumpiness.” Truthiness, he explained, “is believing something that feels true even if it isn’t supported by fact,” such as the statement “The Rio Olympics will be fine.” 

“Truthiness comes from the gut because brains are overrated … Truthiness has to feel true, but Trumpiness doesn’t even have to do that. In fact, many Trump supporters don’t believe his wildest promises and they don’t care … If he doesn’t have to mean what he says, he can say anything …

“Truthiness was from the gut, but Trumpiness clearly comes from much lower down the intestinal tract, and his supporters know this.” 

What Ailes Ya? Twenty years ago, Roger Ailes teamed up with media mogul Rupert Murdoch to launch Fox News, the conservative-leaning cable news channel. Eight years earlier, in 1988, working as Vice President George H.W. Bush’s media advisor in his bid to succeed President Ronald Reagan, Ailes helped develop the signature ad of that election campaign, the Willie Horton spot. Under a Massachusetts plan backed by Bush’s opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, Horton received a prison furlough during which he raped a Maryland woman and assaulted her husband. The ad portrayed Dukakis as soft on crime. The ad helped propel Bush into the White House.

Dukakis’ campaign manager was Susan Estrich.

Fast forward to July 2016. Estrich is Roger Ailes’ lawyer in his defense against allegations of sexual harassment that has cost him his job as head of Fox News. 

Is there a better example of interlocking, incestuous interests among the power elite?

Where’s Geraldine When We Need Her? Comedian Flip Wilson’s in-drag character Geraldine sought forgiveness when she violated cultural norms by saying, “The devil made me do it.” Apparently, one-time presidential hopeful Ben Carson has a problem acknowledging the devil.

As described by The New York Times, “Ben Carson got a prime speaking slot at the convention on Tuesday evening, and he took a different approach at questioning Mrs. Clinton’s integrity. Digging into her college thesis about Saul Alinksy, the left-wing community organizer and radical, Mr. Carson suggested that Mrs. Clinton admired him. Then he pointed out that Mr. Alinsky had acknowledged Lucifer on the dedication page of one of his books, suggesting that such an association was somehow damning for Mrs. Clinton.

“‘Are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model someone who acknowledges Lucifer?’” Mr. Carson asked. “Think about that.” (http://nyti.ms/29PinRt)

So what’s wrong with acknowledging the devil exists? Don’t most organized Western religions include the existence of Lucifer as one of their basic beliefs? One would think the Bible-loving Republican crowd would not have a problem with Alinsky’s acknowledging Lucifer.

Israel Beware: In 1973, President Richard Nixon bolstered the defense of Israel after it was attacked by Syria and Egypt on Yom Kippur by shipping tons of war materiel to the Jewish state. Under a President Trump Israel might not have similar replenishment support given his comments about the backing the United States is obligated by treaty to provide NATO members.

During a 45-minute conversation (with The Times), “he (Trump) explicitly raised new questions about his commitment to automatically defend NATO allies if they are attacked, saying he would first look at their contributions to the alliance. Mr. Trump re-emphasized the hard-line nationalist approach that has marked his improbable candidacy, describing how he would force allies to shoulder defense costs that the United States has borne for decades, cancel longstanding treaties he views as unfavorable, and redefine what it means to be a partner of the United States.” (http://nyti.ms/29PSiSo)

As Israel has no mutual defense treaty with America and receives billions of dollars in foreign aid, Trump may be indisposed to help Israel should another war break out. He might also drastically reduce foreign aid as part of his “take care of America first” platform.

Here’s your political witticism of the day courtesy of WhoWhatWhy.org:

“I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.” —Adlai Stevenson

What's Next: Super or Stupid Tuesday?

It is dubbed Super Tuesday, the primary intensive day when voters in 11 states will express their preference for whom they want to see as the next president. But depending on how they cast their ballots, it might well be called Stupid Tuesday.

I doubt Democratic voters will anoint Bernie Sanders their favorite. Should he pull off an upset of historic proportions (Barack Obama in 2008 at least had a base of African-American voters to buttress his underdog candidacy), Bernie can expect Republicans to immediately start calling him Comrade Sanders as they imprint on the electorate’s mind the Vermont senator’s socialist leanings.

Based on their behavior during last Thursday night’s GOP debate in Houston, being called a comrade by whomever the Republicans nominate would be tame by comparison to the schoolyard taunts and bickering that emanated from the stage. The three frontrunners who covet being seated behind the desk in the Oval Office (Donald Trump and senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz) belittled not just themselves but the presidency, as well.   

How are we to explain how Trump behaves and his appeal? Conservative columnist David Brooks says Trump is a byproduct 30 years in the making: “People say that Trump is an unconventional candidate and that he represents a break from politics as usual. That’s not true. Trump is the culmination of the trends we have been seeing for the last 30 years: the desire for outsiders; the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible; the decline of coherent political parties; the declining importance of policy; the tendency to fight cultural battles and identity wars through political means.” (http://nyti.ms/1LhxX9V)

His progressive colleague at The New York Times, Timothy Egan, thinks Trump acts bizarrely because he suffers from sleep deprivation (http://nyti.ms/1Rs4vgW).

For sheer chutzpah, conservative columnist Ross Douthat places a large part of the blame on Obama’s liberal policies (http://nyti.ms/1RvJOAL).  With an apparent straight face Douthat blames a president dedicated to inclusiveness for the viciously polarizing, demeaning and restrictive tenor of not just the leading candidate of the opposition but almost all of the other candidates. Douthat, no doubt, would absolve a rapist of guilt by asserting a woman provoked the attack because she was a … woman.

My own view is that the Trump-Cruz-Rubio smackdown, aided and abetted by a host of Republican presidential dropouts, is the offspring of years of raucous, aggressive television best exemplified by Maury Povich and Jerry Springer who encouraged extreme behavior, disrespect, physical confrontations, intolerance. 

Those in-your-face shows have inured us to bad behavior. To disrespecting authority. To reaching the point where a congressman could call the president of the United States a liar during a State of the Union speech and boast about it, or congressmen could dis the Office of the President by boycotting attendance during a presidential speech to a joint session of Congress.

When GOP aspirants to the highest office in the land (with the exception of Ben Carson and John Kasich) behave like poor white trash we know our nation’s character is being tested.

Consider for a moment the fact that neither Rubio nor Cruz, or any other Republican candidate or the moderators in any of the debates, have been able to stymie Trump’s advance with penetrating points and questions on policy. 

(Yes, the media have been complicit in Trump’s rise by not pinning him down on policy and contradictory statements. Trump has taken the offensive against the press—the Associated Press reported that during a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, Trump said he “wants to make it easier to file lawsuits against newspapers over what they report. He said that if he’s elected, he will ‘open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.’ He added, ‘If I become president, oh, do they have problems.’”)

Trump is exploiting the baser instincts of the public. As Egan reported, “After a protester interrupted his speech in Nevada, Trump said, ‘I’d like to punch him in the face.’ The crowd roared. Trump continued. ‘You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.’ At an earlier event this year, he said a protester should be thrown into the cold without a coat.

If an image of brown-shirted thugs with red and black armbands springs to mind, you’re not alone. And though they were within their legal rights to hold a rally, the Ku Klux Klan’s open display in Anaheim on Saturday was a chilling reminder that bigotry enjoys a divisive hold in too many parts of our country.

So the bottom line is the electorate is to blame for Trump and his cohorts. Voters have not been sharp enough to demand and obtain real answers from candidates. Yes, perhaps the public has been manipulated. Trump, after all, is recognized as a great brand marketer. And a decade and a half before him enough voters chose to want to have a beer with folksy George W. Bush rather than with the cerebral Al Gore. 

So it’s on to Super or Stupid Tuesday at the conclusion of which we might have greater certainty as to the eventual nominees of both major parties. Even if you’re not religiously inclined, let us pray the republic survives these troubled times. 

The Great (Pizza) Debate. And the GOP, Too

OMG! Did you see the latest news from the debate? No, I am not talking about Thursday night’s Republican Party presidential gabfest (okay, maybe later in this post I will, but not now). More importantly, The New York Times reported Friday the decades-old epicurean debate as to which pizza shop serves the best pies in New Haven, nay, the world, might be drawing to a conclusion.

Sally’s Apizza has an uncertain future. You can’t say you’ve ever been to New Haven if you have not tasted and gone to gastronomic heaven gorging on Sally’s pizza, though some would argue (incorrectly) that Frank Pepe Napoletana down the block in Wooster Square serves the best pies. For details on what might bring this cousinly rivalry to an unsatisfying conclusion read The Times—http://nyti.ms/1TZ9FkF.

It wasn’t because I wrote this blog around lunchtime that I waxed nostalgic about Sally’s and the other eateries Gilda and I frequented when we lived two years in New Haven (1975-1977) and two more before that in Seymour, some dozen miles away, while I reported for The New Haven Register as she earned her nursing degree at Bridgeport University and then worked in the newborn intensive care unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital. 

On my reporter’s salary of $7,800 to $10,000 a year we didn’t have much spare change back then. Though expenses were far lower than today’s (gas was about 33 cents a gallon until the oil embargo of 1973 jacked it up to about a dollar, while home heating oil soared from 5 cents a gallon to 50 cents), eating out was a luxury. Even McDonald’s was a treat not to be indulged in too often (btw, back then McDonald’s and Friendly’s had almost exclusive fast food coverage where we lived, though I vaguely remember one of the first Subway stores in nearby Ansonia). 

My salivary glands do get a workout when I recall three restaurants we patronized when we wanted to splurge or celebrate, especially after Gilda started bringing home a paycheck. For seafood we’d go to Jimmies of Savin Rock in West Haven. Sundays we would dine at the Bar B Q-Rest in Milford along Route 1 for a lobster special dinner—a one pounder for just $2.95. 

If we were feeling really flush with cash, or maybe on our way back from a family visit in Brooklyn, we would stop along the New England Thruway at Valle’s steak house either in Stratford or West Haven. Valle’s often ran a double lobster special. Gilda liked the prime rib dinner, but my favorite part of any meal was dessert, a large chunk of devil’s food cake smothered in whipped cream. Alas, the Valle’s chain closed in 2000. 

Okay, enough about food. Let’s get to the real red meat, Thursday night’s GOP debate. But first, here’s a truism reporters learn early on in their careers, but upon retirement and writing a blog it gets less and less important—never sit on a story!

I relate this bromide because Thursday afternoon I started typing a posting on Ted Cruz’s crude attack on Donald Trump and his “New York values.” Instead of pouncing on the subject I deferred, thus allowing Trump and other pundits to rise to the Big Apple’s defense. Ah well, you’re not paying me to be first with news and analysis. Besides, I was enjoying my time with Gilda during her day off.

Anyone who thought ISIS or some other foreign entity, such as Iran, Russia or North Korea, posed an existential threat to America should have come away with a clearer perception of who really could take down the United States—Barack Obama and his co-conspirator Hillary Clinton or any other progressive who might get the opportunity to break our economic system by imposing higher taxes and more regulations and by getting the opportunity to nominate three or four left-leaning supreme court justices.

All right. This was classic campaign rhetoric. What struck me most was the almost complete absence of understanding of the complexities and nuances required of a successful presidential candidate. Take, for instance, Cruz’s opening salvo (no doubt he could not believe his good fortune to be asked the first question). Though it was about jobs and the economy, Cruz launched into a diatribe meant to raise the boiling point of every red-blooded South Carolinian in the audience and anyone else listening who believes gunboat diplomacy is preferable to respectful communication. 

He excoriated Obama for not mentioning in his State of the Union speech the 10 sailors captured by Iran after they meandered into Iranian waters. Cruz promised if he were president a country that captured any of our servicemen or servicewomen and forced them to kneel in humiliation would “face the full force and fury of the United States.” Oh boy, are we ready for cruise missile launches to resolve situations that peaceful diplomacy could diffuse within 24 hours? 

Ben Carson at times exhibited a sense of humor but, to my thinking, not enough understanding of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Carson wondered how rancor and name calling had become so commonplace in our society. Surely, he opined, it did not come from our Judeo-Christian roots.

Huh? Is he ignorant of American history? Puritans, who came to this land seeking religious freedom, denied it to anyone who failed to practice religion as they did. That’s why Roger Williams was forced to leave Massachusetts to found Rhode Island on the principles of religious tolerance and separation of church and state, as well as respect for the land rights of Native Americans.

Did Carson not realize that our Judeo-Christian value system was a foundation of slavery? 

Did Carson not realize that our Judeo-Christian values failed to open the doors to millions of would-be immigrants from the Far East and eastern Europe, many of the latter group who were Jewish?

Yes, there are many good Judeo-Christian values, such as communal help for the poor and underprivileged, but most Republicans prefer bootstrapping rather than government assistance programs or increases in the minimum wage (which they’d really prefer to do away with altogether as they would Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and Obamacare). 

I’ve worked myself up enough so I won’t dissect the rest of the GOP field.  Have a good weekend.

  

Colbert, Carson and I Share Some Scary Stuff

Talking with Sharon Stone last Wednesday Stephen Colbert revealed a physical characteristic we share. While teasing about her nude photo shoot in Playboy in 1992, he said he is so self-conscious about his body that he “won’t let anybody see me without socks on (because) I have that thing where you wear socks too long and there’s no hair … where the socks pulled all the hair out. I’ve got old men’s ankles.” 

That’s me, too. My ankles, aside from being way too thin, bony actually, are hairless. They’re so white they seem to glow in the dark. I think wearing white wool sweatsocks throughout high school inhibited any hairy growth from my shins down. I never went without socks until I retired and started writing this blog and that was only because my “public” demanded I live up to the self-selected title. 

Anyway, it’s nice to know of another anklo-phobic, especially one with such a high profile.

Getting back to Sharon Stone, she has a new show, Agent X on TNT. I haven’t seen it so I can’t recommend it, or not, but Colbert screened a clip which showed Stone as vice president of the United States. What drew my attention was her hair style. If I didn’t know it was Stone I would have thought it was Robin Wright as the president’s wife, Claire Underwood, in House of Cards. It seems short-haired, stylishly coiffed blondes are today’s power women of Washington, no doubt inspired by Hillary Clinton, though one would never confuse her body with that of either Stone or Wright.

Carson and Me: During my first trip to Israel in 1966 I learned how to identify where the border lay between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors. Look for the green, I was told. Where the greenery ends is where Israel ends. Across the border the color was brown, as in sand.

Now, fast forward to early 2015 and it appears Dr. Ben Carson shares with me the lesson in border topography. 

In case you missed it (as I did back in March when he was not considered by anyone serious a serious presidential candidate, and still shouldn’t be), this is what Dr. Carson suggested to Bloomberg Politics as a way to settle (pun intended) the Palestinian question of a homeland of their own: 

“We need to look at fresh ideas. I don’t have any problem with the Palestinians having a state, but does it need to be within the confines of Israeli territory? Is that necessary, or can you sort of slip that area down into Egypt? Right below Israel, they have some amount of territory, and it can be adjacent. They can benefit from the many agricultural advances that were made by Israel, because if you fly over that area, you can easily see the demarcation between Egypt and Israel, in terms of one being desert and one being verdant (italics added). Technology could transform that area. So why does it need to be in an area where there’s going to be temptation for Hamas to continue firing missiles at relatively close range to Israel?”

Wow! And there are people who think this man should be president? In charge of our foreign affairs? 

Perhaps the most contentious international policy debate is centered on Israel’s right to exist along with the viability and border adjustments of a two-state solution of Israel and Palestine. What makes those issues so difficult is that Israelis and Palestinians do not agree among themselves on either proposition. Which brings me to a sorry state of affairs when it comes to internal disputes.

It is commonly thought that any Palestinian who openly advocates peace with Israel including territorial concessions would wind up with a bulls-eye on his or her  back, and front, and head. Such is the state of public discourse among the Palestinians.

Sadly, the same may be said, if not literally then figuratively, about Israelis and many of their American sympathizers. We just recently commemorated the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister murdered by a right winger because Rabin sought to make peace accompanied with a withdrawal from parts of the West Bank territory captured during the Six Day War. 

Now a vocal fringe in the Israel-can-do-no-wrong camp, inside and outside Israel, has assumed only they know what’s best for Israel and that anyone who disagrees with their vision is a traitor and worthy of public disparagement that is, or borders on, slander. 

I don’t have a solution to the Palestinian question but I have yet to hear a cogent and sustainable answer to the question of what Israel should do about the 1.3 million Palestinians under its control. Should they be expelled? Exterminated? Left to live as a conquered people with no rights to or hope of self-determination? 

Of course, courageous Palestinian leadership needs to come forward before Israel can make equally courageous accommodations. Any peace-loving person has to hope it is not too late for such a reality to transpire. In the present climate of jihad on the one side and distemper on the other, it is difficult to visualize a breakthrough in the short term. But one can always hope.

And Now a Word from Our Sponsors: How bad was this back-to-back advertising placement?  

While watching the Sunday night football game an ad from Subway was immediately followed by a spot featuring a “Jared” from the Carolina Panthers, (Jared Allen) extolling the NFL with the line “football is family.” This Jared ad ran just two days after another guy named Jared, Jared Fogle, the long-time spokesperson of Subway, was sentenced to no less than 15 years in prison for child pornography and crossing state lines to pay for sex with minors.

If I worked for Subway or the NFL I’d demand a make-good. 

Mythbusters Needed at GOP Debate

MythBusters, the Discovery Channel series that proves or debunks long-standing scientific theories, will end its14-year run at the conclusion of the current television season. One can only hope that among its planned segments is a feature inspired by Ben Carson’s hypothesis that the Egyptian pyramids were grain storage facilities, not burial tombs of the pharaohs. 

Okay, enough of the tongue in cheek. Wednesday was a day of myth-busting among Republicans, if any were in fact listening. 

Let’s start off as I did, fascinated by an NPR interview with Christine Todd Whitman, former Republican governor of New Jersey and once an Environmental Protection Agency administrator in President George W. Bush’ administration. Interviewed on The Takeaway radio program, Whitman bemoaned the opportunities her party has failed to capitalize on in the areas of environment and climate change, women issues including the right to choose, and acceptance of minorities. 

Teased she might be a good presidential candidate, Whitman acknowledged, “My party wouldn’t have me in the door, I’m too far out there,” as the only ones voting hold extreme positions. For revealing insights into the state of Republican politics, listen to this near seven-and-a -half minute interview:  https://www.wnyc.org/widgets/ondemand_player/takeaway/#file=%2Faudio%2Fxspf%2F546951%2F

John Kasich and Jeb Bush, and even Rand Paul, tried to instill some reality into the mythology of GOP politics Wednesday night during the main presidential debate, but succeeded very little given the war-mongering, bloodthirsty, anti-government live audience that favored no increase to the minimum wage and massive deportation of 11 million illegal aliens.  

Kasich even raised the specter of the blessed Republican icon, Saint Ronald, granting amnesty to five million illegal immigrants, but the Reagan touch did not extend to him even after his impassioned argument to think about the families that would be disrupted and the impracticality of rounding up and shipping 11 million people across the border. Bush fared no better. Donald Trump’s get-them-out-of-here approach carried the day, as did Ted Cruz’s admonition, “If the Republicans join Democrats as the party of amnesty, we will lose.”

Similarly, Paul didn’t win his argument with Marco Rubio about huge investments in the military. Paul said it would not be the conservative thing to do. To much applause Rubio countered, “I know that the world is a safer and better place when America is the strongest military power in the world.” Regrettably, no one asked which country is the strongest these days if the U.S. isn’t. 

What is it with Texas politicians who can’t remember all the government agencies and departments they want to eliminate? Like Rick Perry who couldn’t recall the third department he wanted to axe four years ago, Cruz had a problem listing the five departments he would eliminate. He twice said the Department of Commerce along with the IRS, the Department of Energy and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Perhaps fittingly, he left out the Department of Education. 

Unfortunately, the moderators from Fox Business Network and The Wall Street Journal didn’t follow up by asking if he envisioned any oversight at all on such endeavors as nuclear power facilities or fair housing opportunities, or the collection and auditing of taxpayer money under his revised tax code. 

Try as he might, Bush failed to gain traction, though he was consistently the only one to tie in attacks on President Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner. He was playing the long game, but who knows how much longer he can linger at low single digit poll numbers. 

Carly Fiorina came on strongest as the non politician, far surpassing the belligerent Trump and the wishy-washy Carson. She had command of concepts and specific tactics. The scowl on her face transmitted a sign of resoluteness. She was ready to tangle with Russia’s Putin, a reality sure to come to pass if she were to implement all the military buildups in Central and Eastern Europe she advocated. 

I didn’t notice anyone sweating during the debate. Perhaps the Milwaukee Theatre was cooled to the 67 degrees Fahrenheit the candidates wanted. Or maybe the podiums had small fans in the alcove under the lectern? During their last debate I observed a fan in the podium at the far left of the television screen. It was “strategically” aimed at crotch level. I’ll resist making any editorial opinion on the significance of that positioning …