Each of the vice presidential candidates had just two things to accomplish Tuesday night. First of all, don't do any harm (to the ticket). Number two (this is a bonus): Document your viral moments.
The bonus points were especially important to Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota). Only 1% of voters watching presidential debates were undecided, so the goal was that viral moment, and his friends in the Democratic media were ready to reflect on it. I was waiting.
By the second hour, Walz was busier blocking punches than trying to return them.
And lo and behold, he gave it to us. When the host asked the governor why he lied about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen massacre, the governor replied, “I grew up in a small town.” It was perfect. Hysterical. This was reflected directly in Vice President Kamala Harris' answer to any question: “I grew up in a middle-class family.” Will Ferrell couldn't do a better parody of a politician.
But the waltz wasn't over yet. He continued rambling. He wasn't kidding when he talked about riding bikes when he was a kid. The host had to prompt him again. When he couldn't answer, he said it was because he had “sluggish knuckles.” And all of this happened in the first 45 minutes while voters in the swing states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia were still awake.
But it was full of rocks For the Democratic Party even before this. Waltz was clearly nervous. He won six battleground House races but never debated on the national stage, and while Mr. Walz rusted, J.D. Vance spent months sparring with hostile reporters. He ran against Sen. (Republican, Ohio). Hut.
That was before the host asked questions about current events such as the Middle East war. How on earth was Mr. Walz able to answer the first question and say what his administration's policy is regarding Israel's attack on Iran? He doesn't know what policies his administration will take, and that's not his fault. His vice president doesn't know either.
Both men immediately began baring their fangs at each other. Still, they were so polite that you could almost hear them saying old-fashioned political politeness like “friends across the aisle.” It's been 12 years since the candidates last pretended to like each other. Vance first became aggressive with the hosts, accusing them of promising not to fact-check and then trying to fact-check anyway. Everyone hates reporters. As a reporter myself, I can tell you that it's impossible to hate them too much. easy target.
By the end of the first period, it was clear that Mr. Walz had lost the top Democrat.
include Former President Barack Obama's pet David Axelrod didn't care about these vice presidential debates, and political reporters were barking about things that didn't matter. pay attention How lucky are the Democrats in that regard?
Waltz knew that too. The vice presidential candidate's ultimate goal is to keep the principal out of harm's way, but by the second hour Waltz was busier blocking punches than trying to return them.
Remember Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas)? Probably not, but you might remember this line: “Senator, I served under Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.”Senator, you are not Jack Kennedy. ” It was a viral moment before there was even a word for it (or even the internet). Few will remember that future Vice President Dan Quayle was dominating the debate when those words were uttered. They only remember that line.
Waltz needed a line like that. He didn't understand that. Or if he did, he scored himself. Rather, the discussion undid an actual viral moment during the early honeymoon phase of the campaign.
No matter what people think about Vance now, he's not weird.
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Fire goes up: City Journal: “Palestine of the Heart”
French writer Pascal Bruckner first rose to prominence in the early 1980s with his work “Tears of the White Man,'' a poignant depiction of the academic left's obsession with the Third World and its hatred of the West. The strange combination of infatuation and self-loathing he observed 40 years ago has become fully mainstream in the American Democratic Party. As widespread wars break out in the Middle East, his critique is gaining more attention than ever. In the City Journal, Bruckner wrote:
In 1974, the writer Jean Genet was an undisputed celebrity on the French left, with his works extolling the beauty of thugs, assassins, Black Panthers, the SS, Yasser Arafat's Fedayeen, and his support for the Palestinian cause. He explained his attachment as follows. For me to support not only the most disadvantaged people, but also those who cultivate the purest hatred of the West. ”
For decades, Palestinians, or rather a mythical view of Palestinians, has brought together two essential elements of this distillation. That is, they were poor, in contrast to the alleged colonizers, who came in part from Europe (although 1 million Jews were expelled) as well as people from Arab countries in 1948. became an Israeli). And they were Muslims, followers of a religion considered by some on the left to be the vanguard of disinheritance. Thus, at a time when the horizons of left-wing revolution were darkening, an isolated progressive movement created a Palestinian revolt against Israel. Remarkably, however, what originally began as a minority preference developed into majority status, garnering significant support from the highest echelons of political power and academia in both Europe and the United States, and capturing the spirit of the times. Re-formed.
…
The war in Yemen launched by Saudi Arabia in 2014 claimed 370,000 lives without sparking Western protests. The same can be said about Bashar al-Assad's 400,000 victims. No one flinches when Arabs kill each other. But when Israelis confront Palestinians, cries of “genocide” rise Right off the bat; we must not forget that the Palestinian population has tripled in the past 50 years (from 1.3 million in 1948 to nearly 5 million today). We are grateful for the deeply bittersweet words of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Dachiwich (1941-2008): Because you are our enemy. Interest in the Palestinian issue stems from interest in the Jewish issue. … If we were at war with Pakistan, no one would have heard of me. …You have given us defeat, weakness and fame. ”
Palestinians are our last natural savages, and there is no sin in killing or massacring them. We forgive his act of terrorism due to “despair.” He is a great Christian symbol of the radical left, and his beatification has been in the works for 70 years. However, love for Palestinians is unfortunately only the result of hatred for Israelis. Palestine's tragedies over the past half century are simply the result of its corrupt leaders (Fatah) and bloodthirsty leaders (Hamas), or of their becoming pawns of various diplomatic intrigues in the region. isn't it. What bothers them most is that European and American progressives, with almost no knowledge of the reality of these people, have turned them into a fictitious revolutionary cause. …
