Before the first Republican presidential primary debate I posted on Facebook that I felt like a wedding guest who just realized that the Best Man, who is getting up to give his toast, is visibly drunk. Before tonight's debate, I feel like a wedding guest again, but this time I'm at the church. The preacher just asked if anyone knows of a reason why the couple should not be married. In the pew behind me, I just heard the bride's ex-boyfriend clear his throat, and he is rising to his feet. I turn around to look, and I see that there are note cards in his hands. I look closer, and realize that they have pictures.
To put the past week in some broader context context, consider that the last debate was 13 days ago. Since then we learned that one of the nominees lost almost a billion dollars in on tax year. And no one is talking about that.
I started thinking about questions for this debate a week ago and I realized something: it's difficult to phrase good questions for Donald Trump. Whatever you ask, he will just pick up a bead and run with it. The debate rules prohibit the audience members from asking follow-up questions, although the moderator can do so. They will have their work cut out for them.
Donald has a pretty good knack for reading rubes. He normally might be well suited to this debate. He might, for instance, be able to read the mood of the qestioners well enough to give them the feeling that he is relating to them, even as the words he deliversa re indecipehrable nonsense. Of course, he will have to deal with an extra heaping of anger and resentment tonight, of the media, of his opponnent and of the party establishment that is abandoning him by the hour. He may think that his best tactic is to attack, attack, attack. That will be an epic mistake and very awkward television history, sort of like if somone stood up at Westminster Abbey and interrupted the Pincess Diane/Prince Charles weddding by bringing up Chuck's love for Camilla Parker Bowles.
For Donald Trump.
1. You have spoken at campaign rallies about recent incidents between the United States Navy and the Iranian Navy. You have remarked on the fact that some Iranian sailors make obscene gestures to our destroyers and that if you were the commander-in-chief you would order the commanders of those ships to kill the offending sailors. When told that this would constitute an act of war, you claimed that it would not. Let's suppose that after you take office, an American sailor fliped of an Iranian vessel and the Iranian ship responded by shooting that sailor dead. How would you respond to the death of that American sailor?
2. You often brag about having graduated from the Wharton School of Business. Whenever discussing trade deals you refer to trade deficits that the United States runs with other countries as those countries "stealing" or "taking" money from "us." Why do you think trade imbalances are theft?
3. You have said that Climate Change is a hoax created by the Chinese to undermine American manufacturing. What evidence do you have for this and how much time have you spent analyzing the scientific evidence for climate change, which has been accepted by virtually every climate scientist on the planet.
Bonus Retread Question: In your campaign speeches you oftne say that business experience and knowledge of how to get business deals done as the most important qualifiction you have to serve as president. You have blamed a lot of President Obama's failures on his lack of business experience. Why then did you choose Mike Pence, a man with absolutely no business experience to be your running mate? (Incredibly, the Republican party has twice nominated buisness men for president on the theory that those skills translate well to being president. And yet both men choose as their would-be successor men with literally zero such experience.)
For Secretary Clinton.
1. Throughout your career you have shown a prediliction for secrecy. Recent examples include your refusal to release transcripts of speeches given to private banks and your decision to use a private email server so as to minimize having your communications be subject to disclosures required of official documents. Often the consequences of this sercrecy is more sever than the consequences of prior disclosure would have been Have you learned this lessoon and will you pledge to err on the side of transparency going forward
2. The United States gives about 3 billion dollars of foreign aid to Israel every year. Israel is a wealthy country that continues to violate international law by occupying Palestinian territory and building illegal settlements there. What does the United States get for this aid and will you be willing to withhold those funds if Israel continues to refuse to work towards an indpendent Palestinian state?
3. The current opiod addiction problem relates back to the decision of the FDA to approve Oxycontin for pain-relief in the 1990s. Many doctors are now reigning in their presciption rates for those drugs, but many users have turned to the black market to get their fix and are now being prosecuted for drug crimes. What would your policy priorities related to this epidemic be?
Bonus Retread Question: Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was intentionally killed under your orders issed by President Obama whil you were Secretary of State. What policies will you put in place to ensure that no one will be denied due process during the process of adding names to this list. (I barely had to change the wording of that one.)
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