Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher
“If you watched the vice-presidential debate expecting a charming Tim Walz to reduce a cringey J.D. Vance to a puddle of conservative tears, you were probably disappointed. But if a rhetorical evisceration in a vice-presidential debate determined the outcome of a. presidential election, Lloyd Bentsen’s humiliation of Dan Quayle would have given us President Michael Dukakis. Walz and Vance appeared to have that history in mind as they avoided each other’s jugulars. … If Americans liked seeing two candidates from opposite parties engage in a debate free of narcissistic, meandering vitriol, perhaps they will conclude that we could have more of that once the narcissistic, meandering, vitriolic Donald Trump is no longer dictating the tone of the national debate.” (10/02/24)