My first reaction to Tuesday night’s “debate” (scare-quotes necessary because this televised event in no way resembled an actual debate) was focused mainly on how bad Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan were as “moderators” (scare-quotes necessary, etc.), However much you hate the media, you don’t hate them as much as they deserve to be hated.
Beyond that, however, the real story was how badly outmatched Walz was, as my friend Matt Margolis explains at PJM:
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) dominated Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) from start to finish in Tuesday nights vice presidential debate. It wasn’t even close. Despite the moderators’ best efforts to give Walz a hand, he was no match for Trump’s running mate.
Vance, composed and prepared, delivered clear, well-informed responses, especially when highlighting Kamala Harris’s ineffectiveness as vice president. Vance not only outperformed Walz on core issues but also tackled traditionally Democratic topics in ways likely to appeal to voters. His effortless command over the debate left both Walz and the moderators struggling to match his poise and precision.
And not even the liberal media could deny it.
“[JD Vance] landed a lot of punches in between all the niceties and all of that,” observed CNN’s Abby Phillip. “And the thing that really stood out to me was that Tim Walz did not seem prepared for it. He didn’t respond to a lot of the criticisms and attacks that Vance put on the table.”
She added, “I mean, I think there was a clear lack of preparation and execution here on Walz’s part.”
Dana Bash disagreed with her. “I think, actually, it’s the opposite,” she said. “I think he had too much preparation.”
Bash continued, “He had so many lines that he was clearly trying to say that he didn’t listen.. when… JD Vance said one of the many, many things he really hit Kamala Harris on — not Tim Walz, but Kamala Harris — he didn’t respond because he clearly had things in his mind. I think the lack of interviews that he has done with national media, with local media, it showed he needed more rest.”
Jake Tapper agreed.
“I agree. I mean, JD Vance is much more experienced at this, at public speaking, at defending himself, at pivoting,” Tapper conceded.
The undeniable fact of Walz’s debate flop was, of course, a subject that CNN (I watch, so you don’t have to) didn’t want to spend much time discussing Wednesday. Insofar as they couldn’t avoid it, CNN spent most of their time highlight a couple of what they imagined to be “gotcha” moments involving abortion and the J6 “insurrection.”
J.D. Vance avoided answering the question of whether Biden actually won the 2020 election. This is scandalous, inside the bubble where CNN talking heads live, but of course there is a very good reason why Vance refused to address this — namely, that about 70% of Republican voters don’t for a minute buy the “81 million voters” narrative.
Inside the bubble where CNN anchors and other news media types live, there is not the slightest doubt that Biden won and Trump lost, which is why they keep yammering on about J6 as a “threat to democracy.” Out here in the real world, of course, those of us who watched the Election Night coverage, and who have followed up on some of the claims made by skeptics, fall into one of two categories:
- “Election deniers” who absolutely don’t believe Biden won;
- People who aren’t sure that Democrats stole the election, but aren’t willing to rule out the possibility.
and
Personally, I’m in the second category. It seems to me that there was some illegal “ballot harvesting” and maybe other shenanigans in the key swing states, but I haven’t yet seen irrefutable evidence that I would stake my credibility on as an explanation of how Democrats stole the election. Furthermore, and this is important, I don’t think there’s a lot to be gained, politically, by endlessly re-litigating the 2020 election. It’s enough for me to say I suspect shenanigans, and move on.
One of the things that leads me to suspect that Democrats really did steal the 2020 election is how determined the media are to silence anyone who doubts the result, and how enthusiastically they applaud the prosecution of J6 protesters. If it were really so self-evident that Biden won, why the censorship? Why the punitive rage toward “election deniers”?
Anyway, the judge in the J6 case against Trump unsealed special counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page filing in the case, and CNN was covering this at the top of every hour, without acknowledging the root problem with Smith’s case. See, it is impossible to say what Trump did was a crime — not morally wrong, nor unconstitutional — if Democrats actually did steal the election. That’s a giant asterisk the media never permit to be discussed. Smith’s argument is that Trump was trying to overturn “the will of the people.” That’s both his starting premise and his conclusion, so that his argument might be rendered as a syllogism thus:
- A. Trump lost the election and tried to prevent the legitimate winner, Biden, from taking office;
- B. [ blah blah blah ]
therefore - Conclusion: TRUMP IS A CRIMINAL! A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY! SEND HIM TO PRISON!
My point — now circling back around to J.D. Vance’s avoidance of the question during the debate — is that the prosecution of Trump hinges on an ironclad certainty that Joe Biden did get 81 million votes, but even if I can’t prove otherwise, that doesn’t mean it’s a crime for me (or Trump) to think the election was stolen. Given the circumstances, where most of the people who voted for Trump felt that he (and, by extension, they) had been wrongfully cheated, the riot at the Capitol wasn’t a threat against democracy, but rather an attempt to protect democracy from crooks who rigged the election.
All that will become moot — a subject for historians to discuss — if Trump wins in November. Let him have his second term, after this four-year interregnum of Mr. Eighty-One Million Votes, and Trump will have a chance to redeem his reputation. The floundering performance of Walz in Tuesday’s debate makes it seem more likely than not that Trump will win this election, and win it convincingly enough that those who doubt Biden won in 2020 will be able to say, “See? We told you so.”
