BloggeRhythms

Fox News is working hard to promote the “debate” it’s hosting Thursday for 10 hopeful Republican presidential candidates. However, aside from the fact that debates have little, if anything at all, to do with how seasoned professionals would handle their responsibilities if elected, there are far more serious and focused methods of determining an individuals fitness for optimal performance in office. Such as, candidates detailed resumes, history and performance in similar governmental positions. 

To provide some insight into a fundamental flaw in using debating capabilities as the criteria for selecting a viable leader of the free world, an example from the commercial world should help. For instance, if any entity, large or small, was in need of a CEO, would any knowledgeable owner select the candidate who presented the best theoretical promise of future success versus one who’s already run, or was still running, a similar successful operation? 

Since the answer, obviously, is that no business, or any other kind of enterprise, can sensibly afford the risk of  a gamble on untried rhetoric and the lack of superior fulfillment of similar positions , why should the qualities required for attaining the most important job in the world be any different? The answer again is, they absolutely shouldn’t. So, once again, what is their to debate about?

And then there’s the format of the debate itself, which seems to be lacking, as well. The moderator is Fox’s Chris Wallace who was written about yesterday by Krissah Thompson @washingtonpost.com/people, as follows:

“Wallace’s goal, he says, is to push politicians off their scripts — a strategy his old colleague Sam Donaldson used to call “unlocking their minds.” When they were both on the White House beat in the 1980s — Wallace for NBC, Donaldson for ABC — they found themselves tag-teaming President Reagan, peppering him with questions about the 1985 incident in which the United States intercepted an Egyptian airliner carrying Palestinian terrorists. Reagan ignored them until Wallace asked, bluntly, “Do you have anything to apologize for?”

According to Ms Thompson, “That unlocked Reagan’s mind.

“Never!” shouted the president, who had planned not to comment on the issue.”

Ms Thompson continues on to conclude that, “That kind of “get” during years of covering politics paved Wallace’s path to hosting his own Sunday show on Fox starting in 2003 — a way to move out of the shadow of his late father, the “60 Minutes” icon Mike Wallace.”

However, causing President Reagan to state that he still wasn’t going to dignify Wallace’s question with any detailed  answer, shutting Wallace up with a one-word disclaimer, seems to illustrate the president as brilliant, not Wallace.

Furthermore, since Wallace got nothing but a terse shut-off from the president, winding up as as just another reporter with a microphone in his hand with still no one to talk to, Ms Thompson's question ought to be who “got” who? And the answer to that one is that Reagan got Wallace.

A comment from mdpilot, summed the upcoming debate up quite well: “If this was a gong show format it would be 50/50 if one of the Faux moderator's got gonged before one of the ten clowns.”

In a Reaganesque one word accolade to mdpilot: Perfect!  

 

Next, Joel B. Pollak @breitbart.com reports that, “The Iranian regime has filed a complaint with the International Atomic Energy Agency, alleging that the United States has already broken the Iran deal.

“The complaint cites remarks by White House press secretary Josh Earnest about the possible use of military force in the long run, and the use of nuclear inspections to gain intelligence about Iran’s nuclear facilities in the meantime. These are frequent talking points that the White House uses to reassure legislators like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)”

While Iran calls Earnest’s remarks a “material breach” of the nuclear deal itself, “[a]ccording to the text of the Iran deal itself (page 20), any of the parties can treat “significant nonperformance” of the agreement “as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA.”

Which means that it looks like the POTUS’s “legacy” deal will last about as long as one of his of golfing jaunts.

Bringing us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife and a story by  Carol D. Leonnig, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger @washingtonpost.com which begins, “The FBI has begun looking into the security of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail setup, contacting in the past week a Denver-based technology firm that helped manage the unusual system, according to two government officials.

“The FBI’s interest in Clinton’s e-mail system comes after the intelligence community’s inspector general referred the issue to the Justice Department in July. Intelligence officials expressed concern that some sensitive information was not in the government’s possession and could be “compromised.” 

 

While the referral “did not accuse Clinton of any wrongdoing, and the two officials said Tuesday that the FBI is not targeting her,” the situation may be part of the reason that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont continues to tighten the race with Bill’s wife in New Hampshire, according to a poll released on Tuesday. 

 

Alan Rappeport @nytimes.com writes : “The WMUR Granite State poll found that 42 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they would vote for Mrs. Clinton, while 36 percent said they supported Mr. Sanders. The survey considers that gap to be a statistical tie, but it shows that Mr. Sanders continues to show strength after months of negative publicity about Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.”

Additionally, “The poll also found that Mr. Sanders is the most popular Democratic candidate in the state in terms of favorability, with a rating of 59 percent. That tops Mrs. Clinton’s 54 percent.”

It also leads to the question asked here regularly: Mayor Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Jerry Brown, and Starbuck’s chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are you reading this?

That’s it for today folks.

Adios