"I went to the fights the other night and a hockey game broke out!"

That's an old Henny Youngman one-liner. I couldn't help but think of it about 20 minutes into last night's so-called "debate" between Still-President Trump and Sleepy Joe Biden. Not that I expected the kind of civilized debate you would hear in Not-so-great Britain or Canuckistan, but not the shouting match presided over last night by Nox News' Chris Wallace, who did a good part of the shouting himself. What did I think of it?

It didn't take Old Joe but ten minutes to start slagging off the President. In the remaining 90 minutes he called Mr Trump a "liar" (several times), a "racist", and a "clown". Those are examples of what members of Westminster parliaments call "unparliamentary language". Those who utter such words during debate can be forced to withdraw and apologize, and if they don't they can be tossed out of the House. But Mr Biden got away with it. I wonder who crafted his ad libs? Perhaps that great writer Ed Hominem? 

To his credit, Still-President Trump did not use personal insults of that kind, nor did he say anything about Mr Biden's physical or mental health problems. What the President did, though, was to interrupt and talk over both Mr Biden and the moderator, in his best bully-boy style. He would have been well-advised to keep cool and try to appear statesmanlike, but that's not really his style, unfortunately.

What about policy? What would either candidate do to address the issues important to me and all Americans, as listed in "What is the main issue in the 2020 election?", WWW 28/9/20. We didn't hear much about those things, although Mr Trump did succeed in forcing Mr Biden to take a position on the radical leftist New Green Deal. Mr Biden said he was for it... I think... even if it cost 100 trillion dollars.

When it came to law and order, President Trump accused Mr Biden of being unable to utter the phrase for fear of alienating his pro-Antifa radical left supporters. Mr Biden replied by trotting out the hoary old line about Mr Trump's allegedly saying there were "very fine people" amongst the pro-America demonstrators at Charlottesville VA. What the President said was that there were "very fine people on both sides". 

The only time Mr Biden handed Mr Trump a stick to beat him with was, I thought, near the end, when the former Vice-President repeated the lie that President Trump had called American soldiers "losers". Mr Biden seguéd into a remark that his son had served in the military and he was proud of him, proud of the military, yada yada yada. 

"Which son was that?", asked the President, "Beau or Hunter?", to which Mr Biden had to reply that it was Beau, and that Hunter had addiction problems which he worked his way through, yada yada yada, prompting Mr Trump to question (again) the Bidens' "business" dealings in Russia and Ukraine.

Chris Wallace, for his part, appeared eager to distance himself from the perceived pro-Trump bias of his employer, Fox News, going so far as to enter into the debate on Mr Biden's side. Rooting for the underdog, I guess.

A hundred minutes of trash-talking. That's what the first of the presidential debates was. President Trump's supporters will be happy, having heard what they wanted to hear. Mr Biden's supporters will be happy that he didn't have a nervous breakdown or even a pronounced "senior moment" during the clash. 

98% of voters have already made up their minds anyway, so the debate was pointless. Worse, it wasn't even good television.

But who won? The funny folks at the Babylon Bee put this up yesterday.

Footnote: Walt gives former V-P Biden credit for having the better tailor. President Trump looked kind of rumpled. 

Further reading: "Debate Recap: Trump Wins, Biden Doesn't Faint, Chris Wallace Goes Down Hard", PJMedia, 29/9/20.