Did CBS end the debate early?

Politico said: "CBS ends Democratic debate with seven minutes to spare" ("CBS brought in the second Democratic debate seven minutes under time... The candidates began their closing statements with more than 10 minutes to go until the scheduled 11 p.m. conclusion"). And various more incendiary sites said things like "Democrat debate so boring CBS ended it seven minutes early."

But I think it was planned. Look at the transcript. The moderator, John Dickerson, was doing commercial breaks like clockwork throughout the 2 hours. He even said "We've got to take a break or the machine breaks down." After that, he set up the "final segment," which wasn't "closing statements" (as Politico put it), but a focused question that precluded a canned statement: "What crisis have you experienced in your life that suggests you've been tested and can face that inevitable challenge?" When that was done, Dickerson didn't say good-night or act as though they'd ended early. He said, "All right, back with some final thoughts in a moment."

What followed was very weird, but obviously planned. With the candidates still on stage but the debate now "in the books," Dickerson brought out Major Garrett to report on the CBS "partnership with Twitter," which made it possible to identify "the most-talked-about moments for each of the three candidates." What got the most tweets?

It was Hillary Clinton, "when she defended her integrity on campaign contributions and mentioned 60% of her donors are women." I imagine there were lots of tweets of the ooh-Hillary's-mad variety or "Ouch!" Bernie Sanders's moment was "I'm not a socialist compared to Eisenhower." And Martin O'Malley's height of tweetability was also taking a shot at someone not on the stage, the phrase "immigrant bashing carnival barker Donald Trump." The candidates stood there smiling as the Major delivered the results. O'Malley, who seemed boyish throughout the debate, smirked and gave a thumbs-up. Yeah, I'd like to see him cop that attitude when Trump is there to punch back.

For some reason, CBS decided it would be cool to do a partnership-with-Twitter dance and that Major Garrett was the guy to twirl with Twitter. The candidates didn't opt to leave the stage. They put up with the absurd theater of saying who won.

And by the way, when I heard Major Garrett say that Hillary "defended her integrity on campaign contributions," my immediate outburst was "Assumes a fact not in evidence!"

"How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?"

Asks Donald Trump after a highly comical reenactment of Ben Carson's knife-and-belt story.

"He took a knife and he went after a friend and he lunged! He lunged that knife into the stomach of his friend!"

Trump demonstrates with his own belt, which bends this way and that — see? — and is hardly a shield against knifings. He actually says: "Anyone have a knife you want to try it on me?"

ADDED: I think we can picture what it will look like if and when Trump's numbers start failing and/or he loses couple caucuses/primaries. He'll tell us off, calling us stupid. He gave us a chance. It would have been great, America could have been great again, but we just didn't get it, and that's it, he's gone. He thought we were smart, but we were stupid.

How are the presidential candidates leveraging the racial unrest at college campuses?

1. Donald Trump: "I think it's just disgusting. I think the two people who resigned are weak, ineffective people... When they resigned, they set something in motion that's going to be a disaster for the next long period of time.... Many of those [demands by protesters] are like crazy."

2. Bernie Sanders: "I'm listening to the #BlackOnCampus conversation. It's time to address structural racism on college campuses." Sanders tweeted.

3. Hillary Clinton (retweeting something her staffer wrote): "Racism has no place anywhere, let alone an institution of learning. Standing w/ the students at Mizzou in my home state calling for change."

4. Marco Rubio: "I am concerned about a broader issue and that is — ah, maybe this is not related to Missouri — freedom of speech on campus seems to be under assault in some of the finest institutions in this country."

5. Rand Paul: "I think freedom of speech is very, very important. Does freedom of speech mean there will be boorish people who say things you don't want to associate with? Yes. But really in a free society, there's got to be a place for people to make their argument."

6. Chris Christie: "I think part of this is a product of the president’s own unwillingness and inability to bring people together.... When people think justice is not applied evenly and fairly, they take matters into their own hands. The lawlessness that the president has allowed to exist in this country just absolutely strips people of hope.... Our administration would stand for the idea that justice is not just a word, but it’s a way of life.... Laws will be applied evenly, fairly, and without bias to everyone."

"Donald Trump and Marco Rubio won Tuesday’s night primetime Republican debate, according to an overnight poll of Internet users who watched the contest..."

"... but Mr. Trump came out as the favorite among Republicans and left the best impression about his ability to serve as president. Some 24% of debate-viewers named Mr. Trump and 23% picked Mr. Rubio as the winner of the eight-candidate event, which was sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and Fox Business News. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson followed, with 13% declaring each to have won...."

The Wall Street Journal reports its poll done by Google Consumer Surveys.

Karl Rove's gratuitous and erroneous shot at Calvin Coolidge.

I don't know why this irks me so much. Something about an attack on an entirely undefended person. Something about propagating a factoid. Somehow it's my job to keep history straight and defend Calvin Coolidge.

It was "Fox News Sunday" this morning, and "GOP strategist" Karl Rove was asked whether Donald Trump's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" helped or hurt him. Rove says:

It helped. Everybody got their moment last night. He got to be marked by the Saturday Night Live crowd, and he got a chance to say he's a good sport and could take it in stride. I think we ought to go back and blame this, however, all on Calvin Coolidge, who was after all, the first president to appear on the White House lawn in an Indian headdress. And since then presidents have felt compelled to go out and occasionally mock themselves, and now presidential candidates have gotten in the habit of mocking themselves. It was, however, I have to say, not very funny.

There's laughter, and the moderator Chris Wallace says "Are you talking about Calvin Coolidge?" and Rove says, "No, I'm talking about last night."

Now, maybe some home viewers said: "The first president to appear on the White House lawn in an Indian headdress — were there others?" But I said: "That wasn't on the White House lawn! That was in South Dakota!"

Calvin Coolidge famously posed in a headdress:



This happened on June 23, 1927:

Coolidge, who was celebrated for signing the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, spent the summer of 1927 in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, working out of an office in Rapid City High School. When Sioux Chieftain Chauncey Yellow Robe, a descendant of Sitting Bull, learned the President would be there, he suggested he be adopted into the tribe. The Sioux County Pioneer, a weekly publication that came out every Thursday, reported that Yellow Robe... said: “The Indians are like anybody else, they are also anxious to see him come. Our population of more than 20,000 Sioux Indians, the first people of the Hills, will also open their hearts with most sincere and hearty welcome of President Coolidge to the land of the Dakotas and if the occasion should permit, President Coolidge will be adopted into the Sioux tribe. We hope he will find in these beautiful Pahasapas (Black Hills) rest, peace, quiet and friendship among us.”

Why, exactly, is it supposed to be funny for him to wear that headdress? In any case, this did not take place at the White House and it has nothing to do with present-day appearances in pop culture settings like "Saturday Night Live."

"Donald Trump gives SNL its biggest ratings in years."

"According to NBC, SNL had a whopping 6.6 household rating on Saturday night..."

.. easily beating the season’s previous high: the 41st season premiere last month, hosted by Miley Cyrus and with a guest appearance by none other than … Hillary Clinton. In fact, Trump’s overnight rating was 47 percent higher than the Miley/Hillary episode.

Donald Trump questions the single belt buckle theory and the pyramid theory.

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Donald Trump was asked about Ben Carson:

Well, I feel badly for Ben. I've gotten to like Ben. And it's a tough thing. I mean, he writes a book where he went after his mother, hit her on the head, or wanted to hit her on the head with a hammer. Hitting a friend in the face with a lock, with a padlock, hard in the face, stabbing somebody, only to be broken up by a belt buckle. Which, if you know about belt buckles, they turn and they twist. I don't think they're going to stop a knife with the force of a strong man. And when he writes that he has pathological disease in a book, now he obviously wrote this book prior to thinking about running for office, I assume. But he said he has pathological disease.... Well, if you have pathological disease, that's a problem. I mean, he wrote it. I didn't write it. But he's going to have to explain a lot of things away. The scholarship situation, the dinner with Westmoreland when Westmoreland wasn't there. And the pyramids. You know, a pyramid is a solid structure, essentially. Other than a little area for the pharaoh. And you don't put grain in a pyramid because it's all solid.

He used the same material on "Face the Nation":
Click for more »

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry... WaPo is soooo so so so sorry Donald Trump was on "Saturday Night Live."

I went over to The Washington Post to read "Trump’s sorry night on ‘SNL’: An overhyped bummer for us all" and I couldn't help noticing the sidebar:



Nothing like showing us how you really feel. I get it. You hate Trump and you're irked that he got the platform of "Saturday Night Live" to pose on — just like Hillary Clinton a few weeks ago and all the many other politicians who've had a shot at hosting over the years. What was so bad about the episode?

Hank Stuever, the WaPo TV critic calls the episode "an anemic and halfhearted dud" and a "boring and misspent episode," but based on what? He says that the cast members seemed to lack the "desire to participate" or "play with him." There was one sketch that was about the cast doing a sketch while Trump was tweeting about them and feeling bad about that, and maybe that signaled how they really felt about him, but that doesn't make the show halfhearted and dull. That showed them going meta with whatever distance they felt they needed, which isn't necessarily dull.

Stuever seems to demand that the show do sharper political mockery, but the failure to insult and abuse a guest host doesn't mean there won't be stronger satire on other occasions or that the comedy we did get wasn't good. So what was such a "sorry" "bummer"? Well, Stuever didn't like the "You're a racist" yell from Larry David in the cold open. But that was great! And:

From there it was one dud after another — some of it featuring Trump, much of it not, the minutes slowing to a crawl. A sketch set in 2018, in a wildly successful Trump White House, fell apart quickly. “Weekend Update” did a fair job of playing a little offense.... The “Update” segment also made good use of Bobby Moynihan’s “Drunk Uncle” character — turns out he’s the ideal demographic for the Trump message...

I'm sorry, Stuever, you have not marshaled the evidence that this was a sorry, boring, dud bummer. You're just pissed that Trump was showcased.

ADDED: Here's my earlier post on what I thought of the show.

Donald Trump's "Saturday Night Live" stint.

1. This was the best part:



That's very funny even without knowing the original video that it spoofs, but you can watch that here. Spoofing that isn't original. It's already much spoofed.

2. For the commenter who asked at 11:05 PM last night, "Why aren't you live blogging SNL?" You have no idea how early I go to bed! I was up at 5, however, and I watched the DVR of the show over breakfast.

3. We loved seeing Ed Grimley! Too bad they had to put "Ed Grimley" in big letters on screen... presumably to help the kids out there whom they must have imagined all saying "Who's that guy?" Here at Meadhouse, Ed Grimley is imitated approximately every other day.

4. Trump did a nice job. He wasn't just a good sport about getting flanked by 2 Trump impersonators in the opening monologue. He seemed to enjoy it. And he accepted Larry David yelling "You're a racist!" at him. Laughing at the idea of being considered a racist. That's edgy. [ADDED: "A Hispanic advocacy group had offered anyone in the SNL audience a $5,000 reward if they called Trump a 'racist' during his opening monologue."]

5. I skipped over the musical act, but Sia stole my 1965 hairstyle.

6. Lots more Larry David in the cold open. David owns the Bernie Sanders impersonation. I wonder if that was the first time the line "It's Saturday Night!" was skipped. Cranky old Larry/Bernie says "Live from New York, eh, you get it."

7. Late in the show there's a fake ad for Donald Trump done by aging porn actresses. The punch line is Donald Trump walking on and saying "I'm Donald Trump and I in no way, shape, or form approve of this message," but the most interesting thing is the shot at Bill Clinton that comes at about 3:00. One of the messed-up ladies dreams of getting to visit the White House: "I haven't been there since the 90s," and the other says, "Oh, yeah, I hit my head on the desk." For a show that's seemed so in-the-tank for Hillary, that's some serious balance.

"The Carson story is either a total fabrication or, if true, even worse — trying to hit mother over the head with a hammer or stabbing friend!"

Trump, tweeting, attacks Carson, and sharply reveals the weirdness of this particular accusation of dishonesty. The stories Carson has told about himself are not the usual resume padding. They're negative. You could say they're inherently believable, because why would a candidate tell tales against himself?

But the context of telling those stories was an autobiography written a quarter century ago. The tales of a violent temper lend drama to the narrative of impoverished childhood and salvation through religion. I'd like to know more about how this book was written and why. It was co-written by Cecil (Cec) Murphey, who's worked on other inspirational books, including "90 Minutes in Heaven," which doesn't sound as though it's rigorously framed in factual accuracy.

Salvation isn't very interesting if you are not a sinner. In the history of dishonest memoirs, what is more likely to be exaggerated and faked — the positive or the negative?

"The Many Noises of Donald Trump."

I'm guessing this works — albeit in different ways — for those who love Trump and for those who hate him:

"Donald Trump will protect Israel, and brutally and quickly cut the head off of ISIS."

From Donald Trump's new radio ad.

Trump: "Anybody that hits me, we're gonna hit them ten times harder."

"As an example, if Bush or Rubio or any of them come out, we're gonna just, dollar for dollar, go after them. We have more money than anybody else by a factor of about a thousand... We're gonna start spending a little bit of money over the next three or four weeks."

Remember the kinder, gentler days of "If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard"?

"Sometimes, on the internet, text and images get mixed up."

Email from Meade, with this attachment:



That came up on some news site that aggregates automatically. It's not a conscious human mind joking. (Meade touched up the photo to eliminate the images that appeared in the top left and bottom right corners.)

ADDED: This was the news site, ZergNet.

Ivana Trump said "Yes, but the problem is, what is he going to do with his third wife?"

The "yes" was a response to someone telling Ivana that she would have made a great First Lady. The "third wife" is Melania Trump. According to Ivana, "She can’t talk, she can’t give a speech, she doesn’t go to events, she doesn’t (seem to) want to be involved." Ivana nevertheless thinks Donald will be "a great President": "He’ll surround himself with the right people. He was always meant to be a politician."

Ivana said that she "suggested to Donald that he should run for President in the ’80s... Then he got involved with Marla Maples and America hated him."  Maples was the second wife, the one who made him need to wait 30 years to do that run for President and to need to have to do it with a wife who can't even talk and doesn't want to be involved instead of the wife who would have been a first wife and would have made a great First Lady.

And that's the way the first wife tells it.


(Photo source.)

"The Six Worst Moments From CNBC's Very Bad Debate Night."

This may say it all (if you click the speaker button on)...
Click for more »

Live-blogging the big GOP debate.

1. Watch along with me. Comment. I'll just be expanding this numbered list of insights. What do we expect? Fireworks? Boredom? Somebody — Kasich?? — making a showy play for attention?

2. My son John is live-blogging too. I recommend that.

3. These CNBC commentators are horrible. Do they even know they're on television? Talking over each other, desperate, contentless. Ugh! They talk like they're drunk.

4. Biggest weakness? Kasich leads off by not answering the question at all, forthrightly refusing. Huckabee denies having weakness, or... he plays by the rules. Jeb says he's impatient. Rubio says he's not sure it's a weakness, but he's optimistic. Trump says he's "too trusting" and if people let him down, he never forgives. Carson says his weakness is not seeing himself in the position of President (until people convinced him). Fiorina says she was told she doesn't smile enough (and she smiles). Cruz says his biggest weakness is he's passionate, he's a fighter, and he's not the guy you want to have a beer with, but he's the one to drive you home. Christie points out the weaknesses of the Democrats. And Rand Paul complains about the budget deal, and he's beginning tomorrow to filibuster it.

5. Trump is asked if his campaign is a cartoon, and he says that's not a very nice question.

6. Carly wants the tax code reduced to 3 pages (from 73,000). The moderators are interrupting and arguing way too much.

7. Big cheer for Rubio's criticism of the Sun Sentinel for being biased in favor of Democrats. Jeb gets on Rubio for missing Senate votes, and Rubio catches him for hypocrisy.

8. Cruz launches into a criticism of the questions the moderators have asked so far. It's a vivid indictment and it gets a big cheer. This interchange ends in near chaos. Cruz really tried to intimidate the moderators.

9. This debate is so stressful and ugly. The moderators are so disrespectful and the candidates are all yelling. Almost all. Carson will never yell.

10. The audience (at the University of Colorado in Boulder) showed tremendous support for Ben Carson. It cheered wildly when he attacked the questioners for criticizing his "vetting process" because he didn't prevent a webpage from using a photograph of him.

11. Trump goes on about those terrible super PACs. And Rubio says: "The Democrats have the greatest super PAC. It's called the mainstream media." That gets a big cheer from the audience.

12. Subsidies are "a bunch of crap," says Carson.

13. Christie is highly critical of the moderators: "Even in New Jersey, what you're doing is rude."

14. Rand Paul wants "a government so small you can barely see it."

15. "In your heart of hearts, you can't wait to hear a debate between Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina," says Carly Fiorina.

16. Ben Carson thanks the audience for being so attentive.

17. Trump will make good deals for America because he made the deal that got the debate reduced from 3 hours to 2.

18. Who did best? Maybe Christie. Maybe Cruz.

19. Did anyone even mention Ronald Reagan tonight? What happened? That was weird. 

"Campaigns erupt over greenrooms at third GOP debate."

"Trump was granted a spacious room, complete with plush chairs and a flat-screen TV. Marco Rubio got a theater-type room, packed with leather seats for him and his team of aides. Carly Fiorina’s room had a Jacuzzi."

Then there was Chris Christie, whose small space was dominated by a toilet... “This is ridiculous,” fumed Christie’s campaign manager, Ken McKay. “We’re in a restroom.”

"Ben Carson has taken a narrow lead nationally in the Republican presidential campaign, dislodging Donald J. Trump from the top spot for the first time in months..."

"... according to a New York Times/CBS News survey released on Tuesday."

Carson has 26%, Trump 22%. The very quiet man is beating the very noisy man.

The distant third is Rubio with 8%, and Bush and Fiorina are dragging closely after him, each with 7%. Paul, Cruz, Huckabee, Kasich slog along in a dreary pack under the embarrassing number 4.

Did you realize there's another debate tomorrow? What's the best thing that could happen, I wonder. After Hillary Clinton's big week, last week, powered by the weakness of Republicans, what can these characters do this week to give nonGOP fans a sense that anything should or could change the trajectory toward Hillary Clinton's seemingly inevitable victory a year from now?

I'm picturing Trump blustering, Carson murmuring, and everyone else boring the pants off us. Will they — should they — attack each other or is it time to demonstrate that they have what it takes to stop Hillary? If the latter, what can they do that won't remind us of how ineffectual the Benghazi committee was in revealing her to be undeserving of the public's trust?

IN THE COMMENTS: People are accusing me of having somehow suddenly become a Hillary supporter. I respond:

Those who think I'm dedicated to Hillary are seriously deluded. Your delusion is part of a syndrome that is going to help her win. You are in a dream world in which the practicalities of winning don't matter. I'm trying to wake you up. If you are going to just say things like Wow, Althouse is in the tank for Hillary, then you are part of the problem you are blithering about.

After some defense of my use of the word "blithering" and more push back about my supposed in-the-tankedness for Hillary, I say:

I think Hillary is and should be beatable. I just don't see the Republicans getting it together to do that. I think that's what Jeb realizes and why he's blithering that he's got "a lot of really cool things" he could do other than run for President. With the normal candidates crumpling, you're left with a weird party that normal voters won't be able to take seriously. That's what I see down the road, and nobody who's complaining about my telling you that is saying anything that makes me think the situation is going to get better for Republicans.

Opinions voiced about voices — the shouting woman (Hillary) and the quiet man (Ben Carson).

On "State of the Nation" this morning, Jake Tapper, interviewing Bernie Sanders, played a video clip of Hillary Clinton getting off a great feminist sound bite: "I've been told to stop, and I quote, 'shouting about gun violence.' Well, first of all, I'm not shouting. It's just when women talk some people think we're shouting."

TAPPER: She's basically calling you a sexist... You're the one she's quoting, Senator Sanders. She is suggesting in public that you have a problem with women speaking out.

SANDERS: Well, you know, all that I can say is I am very proud of my record on women's issues. I certainly do not have a problem with women speaking out. And I think what the secretary is doing there is taking words and misapplying them. What I was saying is if we are going make some progress on dealing with these horrific massacres that we're seeing, is that people have got to stop all over this country talking to each other. It's not Hillary Clinton. You have some people who are shouting at other people all across this country. You know that. This nation is divided on this issue. ...What I was talking about, clearly, across this country you've got people shouting at each other. 

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Chuck Todd, interviewing Ben Carson, played a video clip of Donald Trump mocking: "We have a breaking story: Donald Trump has fallen to second place behind Ben Carson. We informed Ben, but he was sleeping." Asked to respond, Carson said:

DR. BEN CARSON: You know, everybody has their own personality. And if he'd like to do that, that's fine. That's not who I am. And I don't get into the mud pit. And I'm not going to be talking about people. I will tell you in terms of energy I'm not sure that there's anybody else running who's spent 18 or 20 hours intently operating on somebody.

CHUCK TODD: Do you think that people mistaken your soft-spokenness with a lack of energy?

DR. BEN CARSON: I think so. I have plenty of energy. But, you know, I am soft-spoken. I do have a tendency to be relaxed. I wasn't always like that. There was a time when I was, you know, very volatile.... As a teenager, I would go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers. And, of course, many people know the story when I was 14 and I tried to stab someone. And, you know, fortunately, you know, my life has been changed. And I'm a very different person now.