Those who only watched Thursday’s debate could conclude that Donald Trump won and Joe Biden lost.
But to read the word-for-word transcript without seeing a feeble-looking Biden or hearing his halting, raspy delivery is to appreciate the immense contrast between the decency of the president and the depravity of the one who wants the job back.
Trump delivered a torrent of lies, exaggerations, fatuous boasts, ominous threats and unrelenting slanders against America and Biden. This is and always has been a great country. It doesn’t need a pathological liar to make it so.
But it’s a brutal truth that perception is reality in politics. At the moment Biden needed to look strongest, he looked weakest.
His verbal stumbles and moments of incoherence were painful to watch. As calls mount for him to drop out of the race, it’s essential that Biden has a soul-searching as to whether his campaign can recover — or whether Democrats should find someone else with a better chance of victory.
A much more energetic, pumped-up Biden rallied supporters Friday in Raleigh, N.C., where he said: “I know how to do this job.”
It’s not whether Biden knows that. It’s whether enough voters believe it. If they don’t, democracy is in grave danger with four more years of Trump.
Lies, lies and more lies
CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash did nothing to challenge Trump’s flaming lies, although they did call out his evasions, such as how he would deal with climate change. As columnist Dana Milbank wrote in the Washington Post, “The truth never had a chance.” Independent fact-checkers counted Trump’s falsehoods at 30 — a lie every three minutes.
PolitiFact gave its worst rating, a “Pants on Fire!” to Trump’s claim that Biden “allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions.” It rated “false” his allegations that 18 million have entered illegally.
More lies: Democrats would “take the life of a child … even after birth;” food costs have quadrupled; Biden has only created jobs for illegal immigrants and was responsible for Trump’s New York indictments; immigration is “destroying” Social Security; Biden “wants to raise your taxes by four times,” Trump’s tax cut was the largest in history; there were no terror attacks during Trump’s term; there was “ridiculous” fraud in the 2020 election; and that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took “full responsibility” for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Biden drew a “false” only for saying Trump “wants to get rid of Social Security.” Notably, he was awarded a “true” for saying that presidential historians have voted Trump “the worst president in American history.”
One of Biden’s best jabs, which left Trump flustered, was to recall the “suckers and losers” remark Trump is said to have made about not visiting a World War I cemetery in France. Trump has denied ever saying it, despite an on-the-record confirmation from retired Gen. John Kelly, one of his chiefs of staff.
A key point that moderators and Biden failed to make was Trump’s share of the responsibility for the abrupt U.S. exit from Afghanistan. Biden was honoring a deal and a deadline Trump himself had agreed to without consent of Afghanistan’s legitimate government. It portends how he would betray other allies.
Revenge and retribution
Trump insisted that he had asked his supporters on Jan. 6 to demonstrate “peacefully and patriotically” but did not explain why he watched for hours before asking them to leave, why he inflamed the mob with criticism of his own vice president for not blocking the certification of Biden’s election, or why he would pardon convicted rioters.
The convicted felon on stage threatened to prosecute members of a House Select Committee for having him impeached. He did not successfully walk back his oft-repeated threat of “retribution” against his opponents.
On one matter of supreme importance to Florida, Biden was unequivocal about raising the income ceiling for Social Security taxes, presently $170,000, to collect it on all incomes over $400,000 to improve its solvency. Trump did not address that.
Trump also failed to answer what he would do to make child care more affordable; Biden called for significantly increasing the child care credit.
The moderators had to ask three times whether Trump would accept the election returns this time. The best they could finally get was “if it’s a fair and legal and good election — absolutely.” (Translated: “If I win”).
It was utterly absurd for the notoriously egotistic and power-mad Trump to say that he would rather be “in a nice location someplace” than running for President.
Biden nailed it in his retort: “Something snapped in you when you lost the last time.”
The national media crackled Friday with hand-wringers urging Biden to drop out of the race.
It’s the other guy who should do that, but only a man who loves America would, and Trump loves only himself.
For President Biden, the question of a lifetime is whether his greatest service to the nation he truly loves would be to let someone else save it from a vengeful Trump.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
