Posted on 09/27/2016 5:07:26 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
NEW YORKIf you study Method acting at one of the great New York studios that grew out of the Stanislavsky system, the first thing they teach you is that acting is not about speaking, its about reacting.
Always watch the actor who is not speaking, the great Freddie Kareman used to tell his classes at Carnegie Hall. If hes engaged and focused and concentrated, thats when youll see his craft.
Or as Martin Scorsese once told me, Pay no attention to the words. Well change the words. Were looking for whats underneath the words.
The great thing about watching a Presidential debate with a split screen is that you get to watch the face thats not speaking and you get to see whats underneath the words.
And what did these two faces say?
Trumps face, pinched, orange, topped by what can only be called a wispy ghost of a crewcut, was saying, I cant stand the sound of your voice. Youre annoying me. Youre a nothing.
And Hillarys face, coiffed, pancaked, accessorized, was saying, Im going to smile sarcastically, even if I hate him, so the crowd will think I dont care.
In other words, if youre trying to decide which candidate is crazy, its not me!
Im not sure who won. I used a ten-point-must scoring system, with the bout divided into 15 rounds, like professional boxing, and I had it 147-142 for Trump. I thought Trump won all the early rounds, but the referee turned on him about halfway throughLester Holt of NBC Newstrying to nail him on the birther issue and his taxes. (There were no corresponding gotcha questions for Hillary.) Trump let the questions get under his skin and started flailing wildly. Watching Hillary, you could tell she wanted to jump in a couple of times, then decided to rope-a-dope him. Trump recovered near the end, as both fighters were growing fatigued, and scored a couple of points when Hillary turned nasty and personal, practically accusing him of being an owner of female slaves, before the whole thing petered out in a forced I will support the winner hug.
Post-bout analysis was all over the lot, with Hillary loyalists claiming utter and complete demolishment of their opponent because she was more prepared.
Ive got news for these Rhodes Scholars. People dont care about whos prepared. They care about whos lying and, in this case, whos lying more than the other liar. Everything else is just code words. Trump probably cant lower taxes from 35 to 15 percent. Hillary cant achieve her goals by taxing only the rich. Neither of them said anything particularly brilliant about police shootings. The jousting on free trade agreements and NATO was all familiar stuff that gets bandied about every daynobody knows which course produces more prosperity.
But since this was the first and only time Trump has ever been involved in a one-on-one debate, much less a one-on-one debate that goes on for more than 90 minutes, and since he was competing against a veteran fighter who has done it 40 times, I think Trump has to be given the victory according to the Rocky principle: Sylvester Stallone didn’t win the fight, but he was still on his feet at the final bell.
People who have only seen Trump in sound bites watched him go the distance without faltering. Were his remarks long on general observation and short on detail? Yes they were. Did Hillary know more than he did? Probably. Does it matter? Only to people who think the President should be a college professor. You dont have to know how to do anything as President. You have to have the right instincts and you have to hire the right people.
For people who dont trust Trump because of his lack of self control, there he was being halfway restrained, especially when he got attacked personally at the end. I would imagine there were a lot of Undecideds who thought, You know what? Hes not that crazy.
The big unexamined issue throughout this election year is the one looming so large, hovering over the nation like a toxic cloud, that no one can see itnamely, Why does the worlds most powerful nation continue to cling to a two-party system?
This is where we end uptwo liars arguing over whos the bigger liar and whos more crazy. Trump probably wins that argument, simply because all his sins were under the rubric of surviving in a brutal business world, whereas all Hillarys were committed while serving as an office holder. The most telling thing Trump said was, If you care about this stuff so much, where have you been the past 30 years?
The United States shouldnt have a binary political system. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, wasnt invited to the debate, and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, was actually booted off the campus by Hofstra security after she showed up for an interview with MSNBC. Ralph Nader fought against this system for years, filing lawsuit after lawsuit, to no avail. What are the major parties afraid of? Were the third largest country and by far the most diverse country. We shouldnt have two parties, we should have twenty parties. Bernie Sanders should have a party. David Duke should have a party. Gridlock would be impossible, because getting 51 percent control would require compromise.
As it is, we have two mediocre candidates standing on an antiseptic stage at a second-rate college talking about birtherism and tax returns andone of the Donalds finer momentsthe 33,000 emails that were deleted by Hillary Clintons staff. I thought Trump faded near the end when he let Hillary go on and on about how committed she was to cybersecurity and the evil Russians whenhello!she breached the national security hundreds of times. He seemed to lose focus and dwell on the meaningless trick questions instead of pushing forward with his main message, which I would sum up as, Im not a politician, I dont care what politicians like this woman do, I dont understand everything, but my instincts are right and Im willing to blow up Washington.
If he sticks to that in the upcoming debates, I think the already narrow race will get narrower.
When his team reviews the tapes, though, Im sure theyll tell him, Remember that the camera is on you even when youre not talking. Stop with the side eye. Stop with the furrowed brow. Stop with the mugging and the pained expressions.
He shouldnt listen to them. His face was more honest than her face. Lee Strasberg would say he was truthful under imaginary circumstances. I doubt if Donald took any classes at Carnegie Hall. He may just be a natural.
Ping.
I have to agree about watching the one who isn’t speaking. He always looked like he was listening. She just looked like she was waiting.
Taki is awesome, and Joe Bob Briggs has great cultural value.
No boobs.
BINGO ! !
DITTO !
BookMark
It was Obama’s defense in 2008, he was going to gather together a bunch of expects. It just so happened that “CHANGE” looked like a return of Clinton Cronies to the Cabinet.
Might work with runoff elections .... maybe .....
She knew what was coming.
I don’t hold out hope that 20 parties would “help” but I don’t think they should be marginalized or restricted.
There would probably be 3-4 “major” parties with a bunch of smaller parties siphoning votes.
As it standing, the DNC of today is another Socialist party and the RNC is infiltrated with too many former Democrats who are still RINO. If the conservatives and constitutionalists abandon the RNC, they would still be on all ballots and hold significant public office (but become even more leftist in position).
Then there is the International Green Party, Reform Party (which carries it’s heavy Democrat base who are disillusion with the DNC but don’t want to side with the GOP in primaries), Libertarian Party, and smaller and smaller parties. Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders profess to be “independents” but they are IINO, fully aligned with the DNC.
One good point here. She waited til the final moments to sling sexist pig at him and he really was quite restrained in his response, “Rosie deserved it.”. That may be the ultimate testimony to his temperament and as it percolates in people’s minds it may well be the inflection point that does it for him and us. Large events can turn on small things. For want of a shoe a horse was lost...
Interesting times.
bfl...
As I watched at a friend’s house, I said that her personal attack at the end become her ‘closing remark’ and her ‘take home message’ of the night.
It was feared that Donald Trump would be the one engaging in personal attacks and mudslinging and here it all came from the partisan hack moderator and Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump didn’t let Lady Clinton off easy, he just didn’t resort to phony scandal and ‘he said she said’ tactics and mischaracterizations.
You perfectly encapsulate last night’s 2 on 1 debate.
Right on most of this. But they should get him some Nasonex before the next near microphone experience.
Right on most of this. But they should get him some Nasonex before the next near microphone experience.
True, that was a bit annoying. And, what was he complaining about concerning the microphone?
Trump came across as authentic. Hillary came across as an actress ... a phony - someone who thought her sh*t didn’t stink...
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