Did Jake Tapper and Dana Bash Give Trump Just Enough Rope?

It is not my intention here to claim that last night’s debate was not a bad moment for President Biden.

He was certainly slow out of the gate, especially after his first response to a question, after Trump took over and immediately, and I mean immediately, told the first of his many boldface lies – that the U.S. economy, after his lackluster 2020 Covid response, was “the greatest economy in the history of our country, we’ve never done so well…” – without so much as a trace of pushback from so called moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

I think perhaps the harsh realization that Trump was going to be allowed to lie with absolute impunity was shocking to the old-school pol in Biden, for whom the certainty that one would be challenged on outright lies was a given for almost all of his career. Whether this was enough to stun him into a more timid manner is debatable I suppose, but there is no debating that his advance team had dropped the ball on warning him of the possibility that he would be out there on his own swimming in a sea of Trump’s lies while using a voice that his handlers had not even bothered to insure was warmed up and equal to the task.

And while we are on that subject of his voice, it was painfully apparent that Biden was recovering from some sort of illness. The fact that he did not comment on this in his opening remarks was a grievous oversight by everyone concerned.

It’s not like Biden’s team could not have have been aware of the possibility of a hands off approach by CNN, after all The New York Times certainly was…

“The microphones were muted. So were the moderators.

Despite all the CNN logos filling viewers’ screens, and the nonstop hype that the network had piled onto Thursday’s prime time debate between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, the anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash mostly receded into the background as they moderated.

There were virtually no real-time fact-checks of Mr. Trump’s numerous baseless assertions. At tense moments, the moderators deferred to the candidates to directly address each other’s claims. And the concerns that Mr. Trump might pick a showstopping fight with his CNN interlocutors proved unfounded.

Mr. Tapper’s name was mentioned only twice in the course of 90 minutes. Ms. Bash’s name was not uttered once.

CNN had made clear ahead of time that its moderators would act as facilitators, not participants. Its chairman, Mark Thompson, called Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump “the stars of the show.” On that front, the network succeeded.“

Succeeded, I suppose, as far as their ratings were concerned, putting on a shitshow that that would draw MAGA choads like flies and keep them enthralled and delighted at Biden’s futility in trying to refute the staccato rapid-fire barrage of lies – while also producing a horrifying tableau that Biden supporters couldn’t look away from.

Even so, the night was not a total disaster -as many talking heads would contend – actually, according to CNN’s post debate poll, viewers were rather nonplussed:

“Registered voters who watched CNN’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump largely think Trump outperformed Biden, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS, with most saying they have no real confidence in Biden’s ability to lead the country. At the same time, a majority who tuned in say it had little or no effect on their choice for president.

The poll’s results reflect opinions of the debate only among those voters who tuned in and aren’t representative of the views of the full voting public – in their demographics, their political preferences or the level of attention they pay to politics. Debate watchers in the poll were 5 points likelier to be Republican-aligned than Democratic-aligned, making for an audience that was slightly more GOP-leaning than all registered voters nationally.

An 81% majority of registered voters who watched the debate say it had no effect on their choice for president, with another 14% saying that it made them reconsider but didn’t change their mind. Just 5% say it changed their minds about whom to vote for.

Roughly equal shares of Biden and Trump supporters – about 3% of each – say the debate had changed their mind. Larger shares of those supporting other candidates say that the debate had changed their minds. Among debate watchers who said pre-debate that they hadn’t chosen a candidate or were open to changing their minds, 9% said that the debate had changed their minds, and 25% were reconsidering.“

Long story short, it doesn’t appear that the debate really changed that many votes, and I wonder if CNN’s “hands off” policy didn’t in effect just give Trump enough rope to hang himself with.

Watching the debate progress you can see him get more and more emboldened with each lie he gets away with, probably imagining in his warped mind that his lies were helping instead of harming his cause.

Political Science professor Grant Reeher of Syracuse Univeristy describe it this way to CNN:

“Each was the worst president in history, according to the other, and we heard this over and over again. Each of them were great liars, according to the other.

“For these reasons, I think most Americans probably found this debate hard to follow at times, and probably not terribly helpful in forming their judgments of the candidates, if they were not already cemented prior to the debate. And Americans who are not happy with either candidate probably feel worse than they did before.”

The professor added that Biden’s worst moments arrived in the first 30 minutes of the debate, where the president looked and sounded “frail and confused.”

“I don’t think he did very much to dispel the concerns about his age that his detractors are emphasizing, and probably added to them,” he said.

In comparison, Trump’s worst moments were his “increasing hyperbole and untruths about his own accomplishments,” some of which Reeher said were “cartoonish” in their over-the-top nature.“

Heh.

“Cartoonish”.

I honestly don’t know where last night leaves us, I guess we’ll have to wait for the national polls to see if they are bad enough to warrant fulfillment of disappointed Democrats’ threatened attempts to remove Joe from the ticket.

Then what?

A brokered convention?

Guess we’ll see.

But for my part I will write no more posts about drumpf’s garbled mangling of words or his silly stories, he proved to me last night that he was intentionally setting us, setting ME up, with that act…

… and probably CNN also.

Support the site with a subscription today and see no more ads!

Go Ad-free Now!