Last night, Hillary was debating, Trump was grandstanding, an Wallace was enabling him

[Siwsan]

All Trump does is desperately overcompensate for his own intellectual shortcomings, by going off on pretty much unintelligible screeds and baseless accusations. I am half tempted to go over the transcripts, and calculate the percentage of his sentences that were actually grammatically correct and/or complete.

I truly believe that if Wallace had "fact checked" Trump, particularly on the most egregious lies (not making fun of Serge Kovaleski and denying what he said about his accusers) Trump may well have had a total and complete melt down. Why? Because I really believe that Trump went into this debate VERY confident that Wallace would take care of him. And, for the most part, he did. But had that particular expectation been shattered, it might have been epic.

Ok, I'm done now. Well, for the minute, anyway.

[scheming daemons]

1. I disagree vehemently about Wallace. I thought he was fantastic.

He gave Trump TWO chances to state he would accept the results of the election.... and Trump TWICE answered with gaffes that will be talked about for 50 years.

Wallace was tough, but fair, with BOTH candidates. He did himself proud.


He is a shining star amongst a pile of shit over at Fox. He and Shep Smith are good dudes over there.

[Siwsan]

3. I know some people have a different perspective, but I'm just not feeling it.

But that's ok. It's always interesting and enlightening to read other people's take on the debate.

Was he as bad as I anticipated? Not really. But from my view, he was letting Trump get away with his already demonstrated inability to follow debate rules, while holding Hillary to them.

[BSdetect]

4. We must have watched very different debates

Wallace let drumph avoid actual substance and allowed him to talk over both himself and H repeatedly.

At one point drumph asked to respond and Wallace said "NO" yet drumph kept talking

And his questions on climate change? Zero.

Of course drumph looked horrible in doing that but Wallace did not do a great job by any means.

I'd rate him a 3.

[scheming daemons]

8. Of the four debates... this was the best moderated.

Maybe that's a low bar... as the other moderators were pretty awful.....


...but the candidates, especially Trump, make it very hard to moderate. Chris Wallace kept Trump's feet to the fire as much as he did Clinton's, and ironically - because he's from Fox - the "media is rigged, the debates are rigged, it was two against one, he had to beat Hillary and the moderator" lines that the GOP used after every other debate were not available to them.

They can't use that angle to explain away their candidate's defeat last night.


But aside from that... I thought he was extremely fair. And I wish he had moderated all three debates.

[LeftInTX]

14. This was the best debate:

The first moderator lost control
The town hall format has different types of questions
I knew Chris Wallace would be tougher and try to get to the issues.

[trotsky]

10. I was quite pleasantly surprised by Wallace's moderating.

He gave Drumpf ample rope to hang himself... and he did.

[Hoyt]

12. I don't like Wallace, but I agree with you. It was a good debate, excepting Trump of course.

Wallace asked good questions and let them go for the most part. He asked some tough ones for Trump too. We probably had a better discussion of the important issues than any of the debates. I am surprised there wasn't much, if anything, on environmental issues.

Of course, what really made the debate was Clinton's excellent performance and command of the issues and the immature Trump.

[Hortensis]

2. Imo, Wallace's decision not to fact-check worked okay

last night, and was even a responsible way to handle Trump. Definitely far better than I expected.

Hillary called him out when she wanted to, and otherwise Wallace interjected himself as little as possible. That worked well in general and specifically benefited us since the Clinton strategy was to let Trump expose himself as much as he wanted. Also for Hillary to be reserved enough to not grab media attention away from his gaffs. Notably the media are discussing Trump, not Wallace, and Wallace never gave anyone a chance to claim he was part of "rigging" things against Trump.

And a fact we all know is true is that Trump tosses out so many lies that it is impossible to fact-check the vast majority in this format. Certainly the moderators couldn't in the last debate. Hillary herself refuted a handful of points she wanted to speak to and otherwise at least 3, perhaps 4 times, just said that everything he just said is wrong and moved on to her points.

[Siwsan]

6. I just wish they had installed a 'kill switch' on Trump's mic

After the first admonishment, it should have been activated. In fact, when ever Hillary was speaking, it should have been activated.

Admittedly, my idea of using a shock collar seems like a stellar idea, but perhaps a bit harsh.

[scheming daemons]

9. The interruptions hurt him with voters. I don't mind him doing it, because it hurts him.

[Siwsan]

11. I hope so. I just HATE bullying behavior and it's hard to separate the emotions it brings up

Just like it's hard to step back from reacting to anyone enabling a bully.

Although I will say that Hillary's facial reactions, when he did that, were priceless.

[Hortensis]

13. My guess is his handlers longed to use a shock collar.

Passionately. Thanks for the laugh as I imagine it -- Would have been a great show since Trump could never have controlled himself enough to never trigger it.

[ananda]

5. To me, Wallace looked and sounded like ..

.. a wishywashy, mealymouthed little person wanting
to get props from a bully.

This didn't faze Clinton at all. She really impressed me
in this debate, much more than she did in the last one.

She is now President Clinton and she looks right smart
in that role!

[Siwsan]

7. Definitely, she was brilliant. Her debate prep team deserves high-fives, too

I would LOVE to see a video of how both teams prepped, although I suspect the Trump video would be more like a "short".