OF THE
TIMES
After weeks of suggesting Biden was taking performance-enhancing drugs, Trump tweeted on Sunday that he would be "strongly demanding" the Democrat take a drug test before the first presidential debate on Tuesday - also volunteering to take one himself.
The candidate himself has avoided publicly addressing the matter, brushing off a reporter's question about whether he would take a drug test on Sunday with a "no comment."
Meanwhile, Biden boosters from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to New York Times columnist Charles Blow have argued for calling off the debates altogether. In an op-ed on Sunday titled "We Don't Need Debates," Blow claimed Americans had already made up their minds as to who they were voting for and insisted the small fraction of voters who remained undecided were not worth holding three sure-to-be-messy debates for. While a Trump-Biden debate would be "even more useless" than most, Blow insisted that debates in general rarely altered the course of elections.
"Sure-to-be-messy" debates are exactly why the voting public will tune in. Who's afraid of national screen time here?
Pelosi reiterated her own argument against a Biden-Trump debate over the weekend, telling CBS she still believed Biden should skip the debates because Trump "has no fidelity to fact or truth" and - along with his "henchmen" - was "a danger to our democracy." The California Democrat had previously called on Biden to cancel the debates in August, bizarrely condemning the spectacle as an "exercise in skulduggery."
A novel argument for canceling the debates - not just for 2020, but "permanently" - came from The Nation's Edward Burmila, who stated the debates were "pointless" and that watching them was a waste of time. Presidential debates, he claimed, were "an anachronism of a bygone media era" when voters were still relatively unfamiliar with the candidates. "At best," they "add nothing" - and "at worst, serve as a venue for spreading misinformation." If Americans don't ditch the debates now, they'll regret it, he insisted.
Biden has kept mostly to his basement studio during the pandemic, avoiding all but the friendliest interviews and declining to hold the kind of in-person rallies for which Trump is (in)famous. The Democrat's critics have pointed to his isolation - as well as his apparent confusion and word-slurring during his rare press appearances - as proof of advanced mental deterioration, claiming he's only being propped up with the help of strong drugs.
Trump critics have flung similar accusations back at the commander-in-chief, insisting the president abuses Adderall (pharmaceutical-grade amphetamines) based on allegations made by a former Apprentice staffer during a stand-up comedy routine. The president has denied the claims.
With over 87 percent of Americans over age 65 taking a prescription drug on a regular basis - and a third of Americans over 55 years of age taking five or more prescription drugs, chances are both Trump (aged 74) and Biden (aged 77) are taking something - though whether what's in their medicine cabinets counts as a performance-enhancing drug is another matter.
Meanwhile, Biden boosters from House Speaker Nancy PelosiAnd there you have it folks. The Democrats even have a moniker for the drugs - Biden Boosters. And Nazi Pelosi is his dealer.
Sometimes it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.(in regards to BOTH of them...)
R.C.
*Which also should be not criminalized. (The issue of MLB, et al. is an interesting, separate discussion, from this libertarian's perspective.)
RC