CSotD: Play the hand or fold?
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As suspected, waiting 24 hours brought in more cartoons about the debate than can possibly be used here, which, by-the-by, is a good indicator of how little cartoonists are really constrained by schedules, deadlines and rules.
A more critical factor is evident in Nick Anderson (Tribune)’s piece: The immediate reaction for Democrats was, indeed, a combination of despair and panic. The question is whether that response will become the election’s defining moment or a powerful motivator.
To put it one way, Abraham Lincoln was challenged in his second run for the White House, and said
I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.
But neither should we forget the wisdom of Mike Tyson, who observed
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.””
Biden got punched in the mouth, but he rallied the next day and gave a solid speech in North Carolina. Here’s the video, with a h/t to Mark Evanier, who asks, “Where the **** was this guy last night?
Excellent question. Is his recovery too little, too late? I guess we’ll see.
For the record, Lincoln won a second term and Mike Tyson lost on a TKO.
Clay Bennett (CTFP) is the master of the stunned take, and he gets this one right, as Democrats throughout the country froze in fear. The question is, “and now what?”
As Walt Handelsman put it, the panicked reaction was to look for another horse they could swap to.
He offers a reasonable selection of possible choices, with the largest sign being to keep going on the road that got you this far.
Clay Jones is not the only cartoonist who depicts the donkey as suggesting Gavin Newsom, and it’s important to distinguish between promoting your own choice and showing what Democrats are thinking.
After all, Mike Lester (AMS) shows the donkey making choices and, based on his previous work, we can be reasonably certain that Lester’s own choice would be “none of the above.”
Chris Britt (Creators) frames the question in simpler, more Biden-centric terms, to which I would add that retiring would be a certainty while saving democracy might be a stretch, at which point we might cite Robert Browning:
A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?
But to quote history instead, some have looked to 1968, when Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the race and his replacement, Hubert Humphrey, lost to Nixon. It’s a terrible, irrelevant parallel.
LBJ quit two months before the Convention, in the face of a challenge from Bobby Kennedy, who was on a surge when he was assassinated June 5 and might well have had both the nomination and a victory.
As it was, Humphrey was soundly defeated in the Electoral College but the race was close in actual votes, while the third-party candidacy of George Wallace plus Nixon’s secret undermining of LBJ’s peace initiative … well, suffice it to say that 1968 is hardly comparable.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Four views of the same factor: Trump failed to answer most of the questions he was asked, instead choosing to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about and to spin a flood of braggadocio, exaggeration and blatant lies which left Biden overwhelmed and frozen, as Mike Tyson might have predicted and Alcaraz portrayed.
Scott Stantis seems to credit Jake Tapper with Trump’s win. I haven’t reviewed the recording enough to make a count, but it seemed Dana Bash more often noted how much time Trump had left and repeated the question he had originally ducked.
If that’s true, then Tapper could get more credit for allowing Trump to hijack the conversation, but the bottom line is that CNN’s format opened the door to outrageous claims and Biden failed to point them out.
It’s rare that a game’s outcome is determined by an incompetent ref, and blaming the officials is never a good response to defeat.
To put it in futbol terms, you should know within the opening minutes of a game how the assistant refs are calling off-sides and adjust your play accordingly.
Jeff Danziger (Counterpoint) may have a point in suggesting that the press has been more dogged in reporting Biden’s failure than in reporting on Trump’s flood of lies.
Others have suggested that Trump is so well-known for false statements that his lies are no longer newsworthy. However, though journalists are taught that while “dog bites man” is not news and “man bites dog” would be, we haven’t stopped reporting on murders or airplane accidents because they are frequent.
Besides, by that measure, if “Trump lied” is no longer news, “Biden is old” wouldn’t be, either.
However, it still comes down to blaming the refs.
As it happens, Lee Judge — who doubles as a sportswriter — cuts to the bottom line and makes the relevant call on the final loser.
He also offers this scant bit of dark optimism:
And then he wisely adds this disclaimer:
(And if you’re one of those people who say the first one to bring up Hitler loses an argument, in my experience the people who say that just lost an argument and regret not bringing up Hitler sooner.)
While, speaking as we were of people who aren’t reluctant to punch you in the face, Ann Telnaes does some of her best work in cold fury and she doesn’t hold back on her analysis this time around.
For those who prefer to see it in text, Will Bunch had a good piece on the topic, which lays out all the hard truths but includes this optimistic but practical wrap-up:
And Garth German, having recovered from Thursday night’s shock, laid out the choices for those who didn’t quite understand how it works in the real world, where you dance with the one that brung you, play the hand you were dealt and try not to fall off whatever horse you rode into that river.
It’s okay to put it all down for a while, but just until November.
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