A Feature, Not a Bug

Bill Clinton was an effective Democrat president who understood his country and governed well. I voted for the man twice, despite his personal foibles, because he got stuff done. However, since Clinton left office, the other elected Democrat president, congressional leaders and members of congress have failed miserably at governance, have participated in or encouraged scandalous behavior inside the government, and most important, have been habitually dishonest and vicious.

Kamala Harris exemplified some of that in her debate performance a few nights ago. Molly Hemingway notes that Harris did or said the following during the debate:

• blamed Donald Trump for COVID deaths but never indicating how she and Biden would have reduced the death count;
• promoted the proven "fine people" hoax; 
• invented a little dishonest history about Abe Lincoln; 
• suggested she hadn't receiving equal debate time while actually getting about 10 percent MORE time (Harris—38:34, Pence—35:22) than her opponent; 
• encouraged anti-vaxer positions by suggesting that she wouldn't take a vaccine if it was suggested by Donald Trump; 
• outright lied about Joe Biden's past positions on fracking; 
• refused to answer a critical question about her position on packing the Supreme Court; 
• was disingenuous when she criticized the state of the COVID economy while never mentioning that it was the Democrats at all governance levels who championed the lockdown; 
• noted that Trump blamed China for COVID-19 as if the origin of the virus was ind depute

BTW, did you know that the debate moderator, Susan Page, was Nancy Pelosi's biographer? Hemingway comments:

One of the problems with the media being so uniformly in support of the Democratic Party and its goals is that nearly all the questions posed in debates are loaded with false assumptions. The first question to Pence, for instance, was that the U.S. death toll was worse than “almost” any other “wealthy” country on earth. The U.S. case fatality rate of 2.8 percent is below Italy, United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, France, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany, something that the media rarely mention.

When Page asked Harris about whether she’d take a vaccine, she neglected to mention that Harris had made anti-vaccination remarks weeks ago.

Page couched a discussion of the economy in a claim that the economy is not recovering. “Vice President Pence, your administration has been predicting a rapid and robust recovery, but the latest economic report suggests that’s not happening.” In fact, the latest estimate from the Atlanta Federal Reserve is that third-quarter GDP growth will be more than 35 percent, the largest in history.

“Do you believe that climate change poses an existential threat?” was the general tenor of the questions. She highlighted that “President Trump” blames China for the coronavirus, as if it’s in dispute that the coronavirus came from and was mishandled by China. Instead of asking Harris for her support of abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, and for suing nuns to force them to pay for abortions, Page went with a far friendlier “Would you want your home state to enact no restrictions on access to abortion?”

Page didn’t ask Harris about supporting a bail-out fund for rioters.

Most egregiously, a question about the peaceful transfer of power was posed as if this was a concern for Trump, even though it is the Resistance who, by definition, have fought the 2016 election’s legitimacy for nearly four years now.

Pence was asked tough questions about things Trump has said or done. That is appropriate and good. It is also appropriate and necessary for Biden and Harris to be asked tough questions about their views. That is where the media have completely abdicated responsibility in favor of their preferred 2020 approach of campaign advocacy.

From the point of view of the "non-partisan" debate commission, all of that's a feature, not a bug. 

UPDATE:

Regardless of every debate moderator's attempt to protect the Democratic candidate, Mike Pence was successful in pointing out the alliance between the socialist wing of the Democratic party and Joe Biden. Kim Strassel comments:

Debates rarely produce clear winners, though they often produce clear wins. Vice President Mike Pence’s victory of the evening was successfully exposing for viewers who is really running today’s Democratic Party. And give him credit. Just three weeks from an election, not one member of the Beltway media, including the debate moderators, has been willing to challenge Joe Biden on his leftward lurch. It was left to Mr. Pence to take the Bernie wraps off ...

Mr. Pence also pointed out that Ms. Harris is an original Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, a Bernie-promoted $16 trillion regulatory straitjacket ... . That’s a campaign killer, even as it’s a litmus test for the left. Mr. Biden’s answer has been to claim disingenuously that the Green New Deal is the “crucial framework” for his own plan, which is nonetheless somehow “different.”

Even moderator Susan Page didn’t let that one go, and asked Ms. Harris to explain how her campaign can simultaneously tout the Green New Deal on its website and disavow it. Ms. Harris’s response was to talk about taxes, and wildfires, then the Senate Environment Committee. Mr. Pence referred to the Green New Deal 11 times; Ms. Harris not once—and you can bet smart voters noticed.

The real question is how many "smart" voters are ought there.

Strassel also provides some sage advice for Donald Trump:

The media intends to spend the next 25 days making every moment about Mr. Trump. While it goes against his instincts, Mr. Trump needs to make every one of those moments instead about Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris—their plans, their inconsistencies, their refusal to answer questions. Mr. Pence proved on Wednesday that this can done. But it will be up to the Trump campaign alone to do it.

We'll see.