Well, it was nice being the greatest country in the history of the world.
We pulled it off for 240 years. Then came the Republican debate Thursday night in Michigan, in which the rattled front-runner of the party of Abraham Lincoln defended the size of his male member before 10 to 20 million of his fellow Americans.
By the way, Lincoln was sworn in as president 155 years ago yesterday. And so, on behalf of a horrified people, let me just say: I’m sorry, Abe, for what’s become of the union you sacrificed your life to save.
Since Donald Trump’s reference to the substantiality of his private part came at the beginning of an almost insanely raucous two hours, and cast a shadow over everything that followed, it’s hard to know whether one can properly judge the night’s proceedings as a debate and not a living civic nightmare.
The entire evening was what Trump would call a “disastuh.” Now, I know it makes no sense to bet against him, and that anyone who has written his political obituary thus far (me included, after the “ban all Muslims” moment in November) has had to eat crow.
But the events in Detroit last night will have long-lasting effects even if they don’t affect his path to the nomination in the short term.
Twice during the evening he changed core positions, one of them during a commercial break — when he suddenly announced his support for H1-B visas for skilled workers and contradicted the stance his own website had him taking even as he spoke.
He said America had to stay in Afghanistan, which he has opposed, and gave a reason no one else has ever given — we need to because it’s next to Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. So are we there to protect the nuclear weapons, or to steal the nuclear weapons, or what?
He also rather blithely said he would order military commanders to commit war crimes if he thought it necessary — an order they are obliged under American and international law not to obey, as several of them have pointed out in recent weeks. And when challenged, he declared that they would do what he said, believe him, because that’s what a leader does.
He was confronted on his proposed spending and spending cuts, and could not answer. Most stunning, he claimed three times that his Trump University was upgraded by the Better Business Bureau from a D-minus grade to an A grade — which Fox anchor Megyn Kelly basically said was an outright lie.
Ted Cruz got the toughest lick in, when he got Trump to speak the words: “In 2008, I supported Hillary Clinton.” That line will appear in $10 million worth of advertising over the next few weeks, I expect.
All of Trump’s answers Thursday night could be cut into commercials against him. Fox and his rivals gave him the rope. And whether it’s now or in the general election, he may have hanged himself with it.
Now, we’ve been told Ted Cruz is a great debater by everyone who went up against him in college and law school, and in the 10th Republican debate Thursday night in Michigan, he finally showed it with a flawless performance.
Cruz was spared the necessity of slashing at Donald Trump because the newly and astonishingly aggressive Marco Rubio — along with Megyn Kelly — did most of the attacking. Rubio got down in the dirt with Trump at the outset and seemed to have been lowered by it.
But he got in the best joke of the night — about how Trump could take a yoga break with all the flexibility he was claiming he could show. And John Kasich again played for the nice-person vote, which could help him. Or not. Who knows.
It was not just Trump who was damaged Thursday night. That a major debate of a major political party could devolve in this way did damage to the United States.