Last Wednesday night (September 16, 2015) the GOP and CNN held a 3-hour media event and called it a “Republican Presidential Debate”. 22.9 million people watched the event. That equates to 68.7 million (68,700,000) hours totally wasted by people in this nation in one single evening. I was not among those people, primarily because I did not arrive home until the circus had already been on for an hour, thus I decided to catch it on You Tube the following day. I am thankful that I spent my evening reading and having family time, which provided me with much more pleasure. The next day I settled in with a fresh cup of coffee to watch the replay. An hour later, at the first break, I ditched the effort, downloaded the transcript and read in about 20 minutes what other people spent three hours watching. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a debate. It was Republican. It was NOT Presidential, though the 11+4 clowns are each hopeful that they will be sitting in the big chair some 16 months from now. And it damned sure was NOT a debate, at least not in the sense that anybody debated anything that had value to the American public. It was nothing more than a loud, obnoxious clash of egos.

Predictably and expectedly, Donald Trump attempted to upstage everyone with his sophomoric behavior. Equally predicted and expected, many of the other candidates proved yet again that intelligence and reasonableness are not their strong suit. But what I found surprising and particularly disgusting was the tone set by the primary moderator, Jake Tapper. Until this point, I have always had respect for Tapper and his journalistic style and abilities. To be fair, I am certain that his bosses at CNN directed Mr. Tapper as to both the questions and deportment to be used during this circus, but frankly I expected Mr. Tapper to have more integrity than this. Jake Tapper has won numerous awards for journalistic excellence, including an Emmy, three Merriman Smith Memorial Awards and an Edward R. Murrow award. He is unlikely to win any awards for his performance last Wednesday night. The job of the moderator in a debate is to ask questions, be certain that each candidate has an opportunity to answer, and to guide the debate so that it is not completely de-railed by personalities and petty arguments among the candidates. Mr. Tapper did the exact opposite, he encouraged personality conflicts and petty arguments, and almost completely disregarded the important issues facing the nation today.

Bill Press, writing for Opinionated, said it best: “Even in three hours, CNN couldn’t find time for one question on the Syrian refugee crisis, climate change, gun safety, voting rights, criminal justice reform, or jobs. They were too busy starting food fights among candidates.”  Instead, it was a mudslinging contest about Donald Trump insulting Carly Fiorina’s physical looks, etc. The best comment by any of the candidates during the whole three hours was by Governor Kasich of Ohio who said, “Listen, you know, I — if I were sitting at home and watching this thing back and forth, I would be inclined to turn it off.”

To be sure, a few lesser “issues” were discussed, as when Huckabee defended the Kentucky clerk, Kim Davis, and the discussion on whether to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Speaking of which, all eleven candidates agreed that they would de-fund Planned Parenthood, but still they argued about it for several minutes. They can’t even agree when they agree! I could offer my own opinion on both of these “issues” as well as the candidates themselves, but my purpose here is to review the “debate”, rather than to put forth my own opinions about the issues and candidates. I will certainly do that in another post, so stay tuned!

When I watch a political debate, I do so in order to learn something. In the case of a Presidential Debate, I watch in order to learn what the candidates’ views are about the things that are important, to learn how the candidates plan to govern, what policies they want to implement. This so-called debate did not provide a single bit of knowledge that we did not already have. Mr. Trump tooted his own horn many, many times with comments like “I did a very good job”, and “people are very, very impressed with what I’ve done”, all of which merely reinforces what we already knew, that Trump is not an intellectual and thinks way too highly of himself. (Note that Trump rarely speaks in whole sentences.) The “debate” failed in its purpose, as far as I am concerned. CNN may feel differently, as their purpose was apparently to gain in the ongoing battle for ratings. CNN will also host the first Democratic debate on October 13th, and one shouldn’t expect it to be any different, since with last week’s debate, CNN actually broke their prior ratings record and the ratings were larger than the average NFL broadcast. On October 28th, CNBC will host the next Republican debate, and on November 14th, CBS will host the second Democratic debate. Hopefully CNBC and CBS will do a better job of putting responsibility and integrity ahead of ratings. I am not holding my breath.