Tag Archives: politics

Presidential Debates in 2024

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Karl Rove wants a return to simplicity:

A return to simplicity would mean fewer diversions….

His idea for achieving this:

The first presidential debates between the parties’ nominees, Kennedy and Nixon in 1960, were done in small TV studios. Only the moderator, a panel of journalists, and a handful of network executives were present.

Except in 1960, the press wasn’t nearly so biased as it is today—and nakedly, proudly so today.

And a pressman moderator? Recall even in the 2015-16 Republican primary debates, how blatantly Moderator Wolf Blitzer, during that debate’s Audience Question Time, took the question that an audience member asked on national television and completely distorted it into something that Blitzer wanted asked instead.

Rove’s idea isn’t particularly balanced in its simplicity.

On the other hand, it’s hard to see how much simpler it could get than a two-hour debate in a town hall setting with Trump and Biden, and RFK, Jr, if he’d be willing to show up; Each debater would take turns taking questions from the audience that each debater then would answer. There would be no moderator from the press to screen the questions; the debaters would simply take their chances on selecting an audience member to ask his/her question.

The two hours would give the viewers and the town hall audience ample opportunity to evaluate policies on offer (if any); the ability of each debater to concretely answer the question asked, even to stick to each question’s subject over the two-hour course; and the ability of each debater to remain focused and clear for the duration.

Then do at least two more such town hall debates. Trump wants more debates than just the three the Commission on Presidential Debates, in its irrelevance, wants; it’d be interesting to learn how many of the other parties’ candidates would be amenable—and who those candidates would be.

Give Us Money

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Trust us to figure out something useful to do with it. In a MarketWatch article centered on auditing the rich, this bit, early in the article, jumped out at me.

The Internal Revenue Service is getting specific about how many more audits it wants to spring on rich taxpayers and businesses, as the tax collector absorbs billions of dollars in funding in order to toughen tax compliance at the top.

This is backwards, for all that it’s too typical of the way Congress works. What should have happened, and what We the People can make happen if we finally get our own backs up and elect people who’ll represent us and not lobbyists, is that Congress should have responded to the IRS’ budget item request—here, expanded audit rates—with a requirement to show Congress IRS’ plan for carrying out those audits. That plan should have been required to lay out all the gory details and not filled with glittering generalities and vague goals.

There should have been no funds appropriated, much less allocated, until that detailed plan was provided and was satisfactory to Congress. Of course, the flip side of that, is Congress should appropriate and allocate the relevant funds, if the plan was sufficient: Congress should not micromanage the thing.

But Congress didn’t, and it won’t any time soon.

A Coward’s Copout

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In a Wall Street Journal article centered on the Los Angeles police response to the disruptions and outright riot on the UCLA campus, there was this bit of attempted deflection:

Some universities and officials have blamed outsiders for coming to schools to escalate the protests.

This is a coward’s copout. It’s true enough that some outsiders are involved and fomenting some of the agitation. However, the students are voluntarily choosing to be agitated and choosing, on their own initiative, to participate in the pro-terrorist support, the antisemitic bigotry, the vandalism, the explicit threats of violence that are at the core of the disruptions.

The presence of outsiders in no way absolves these students of their participation in these…disruptions…and in no way mitigates their responsibility for their choices and actions.

A Statement of Responsibility…and of Consequences

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‘Way back in 1969, the University of Notre Dame’s then-President Father Ted Hesburgh had this to say about the consequences of student disruptions [emphasis in the original]:

Now comes my duty of stating, clearly and unequivocally, what happens if…. Anyone or any group that substitutes force for rational persuasion, be it violent or non-violent, will be given fifteen minutes of meditation to cease and desist…. If they do not within that time period cease and desist, they will be asked for their identity cards. Those who produce these will be suspended from this community as not understanding what this community is. Those who do not have or will not produce identity cards will be assumed not to be members of the community and will be charged with trespassing and disturbing the peace on private property and treated accordingly by the law.
After notification of suspension, or trespass in the case of non-community members, if there is not within five minutes a movement to cease and desist, students will be notified of expulsion from this community and the law will deal with them as non-students.
There seems to be a current myth that university members are not responsible to the law, and that somehow the law is the enemy, particularly those whom society has constituted to uphold and enforce the law. I would like to insist here that all of us are responsible to the duly constituted laws of this University community and to all of the laws of the land. There is no other guarantee of civilization versus the jungle or mob rule, here or elsewhere.

It must be noted that Hesburgh’s consequences are just as applicable to today’s crop of school professors who participate in such disruptions.

It’s too bad that today’s school administrators lack Father Hesburgh’s clarity and moral courage in executing the duties attached to school administration.

The Draft

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A correspondent to The Wall Street Journal‘s Tuesday’s Letters wrote of the consequences of ending the military draft and of the need for reinstating it.

He’s spot on, including his call for keeping exemptions to a bare minimum.

If we are to reinstate the draft, exemptions must be few and confined to medical reasons. American youth deserve fairness if they are to respond to the call of freedom.

I agree with reinstating the draft, but I would add two opportunities for delay by one drafted.

College/trade school students who are drafted should be allowed an opportunity to finish their degrees/certifications before heading to boot camp. That opportunity, though, should come with its own limit. College degrees take four, or at most five years, and trade school programs take two, or at most three years. A drafted student’s delay clock should start from the first year of his time in school, and the delay should expire at the end of those four/five years or two/three years, whether he’s finished his program or not.

Graduate students would have no such delay; they should be required to report on the specified date.

The other delay—which could convert to an exemption—should apply to those enrolled in ROTC programs. When I went through USAF ROTC some while ago, the program proceeded in two phases. The first was a General Military Course, which lasted for two years, and at the conclusion conferred no obligation to enlist. Any student could enroll in the GMC. The second phase, the Professional Officer Course, was open only to those who had completed the GMC (the requirement could be waived, but that was only rarely done), and enrolling in the POC involved formally enlisting in the Air Force as an NCO. Cadets could resign from the POC at any time, but they were then expected to report for duty at their NCO rank (a requirement that, in the realization, wasn’t always enforced.)

A draft/delay exemption would apply to ROTC enrollees in this way. Their draft delays would date from their enrollment in the GMC. Resigning from the GMC, or declining to subsequently enroll in the POC would require the draft-delayed student to report to boot camp on the next available date. Students who resign from the POC would be required—with no exceptions—to report for duty at their NCO rank. A cadet who completes the ROTC program and is commissioned would see his draft status OBE.