February 7, 2016

Christie bullied Rubio and Trump bullied the audience.

Did anything else happen at the debate last night? We bailed out of the live broadcast somewhere around halfway through. I'm glancing at the reports this morning. I'm seeing that Christie accomplished a "beatdown of Marco Rubio" (Salon) and Christie "rattled" Rubio (Yahoo Politics and Washington Free Beacon and that Rubio "chokes" (Politico) and "Malfunctions" (Buzzfeed), so I figured I'd flip it and say Christie bullied Rubio. It's just my way of protesting the tiresomely dramatic headlines. Who did what to whom? Any schlonging?

I've got the debate recorded, and I could start watching where I left off, but now here's the transcript, which is so much faster (even as it seems not to matter). The one thing I want to look up is what they said about drafting women — drafting women into combat. I never thought this idea would even be acceptable let alone popular or even — has it come to this? — what you think you're supposed to think. (And this is an idea I delve into on an annual basis, because Conlaw2 must cover the Supreme Court case that said it's not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause to require men but not women to register for the draft.)

I'm going to start a new post to talk about what they said about the draft.

As for Trump bullying the audience:
"That's all of his donors and special interests out there," Trump said of the people booing him. "That's what it is. And by the way, let me just tell you: We needed tickets. You can't get them. You know who has the tickets? … Donors, special interests, the people that are putting up the money. That's who it is.... The reason they're not loving me is I don't want their money. I'm going to do the right thing for the American public"....

60 comments:

Hagar said...

"Be careful what you wish for; you might get it!"

Sydney said...

Is it true about the donors?

Sydney said...

Re: Eminent domain. I always associate the Kelo decision with a Bush Supreme Court nominee. Am I mistaken?

traditionalguy said...

Interesting thought is that before the first Fox Debate, the Fox moderators had made plans for Trump to be removed from the stage by security if he refused to obey them. And Fox's phony Luntz focus group was programed against Trump. But now Trump has the authority from the stage to have the rigged audience input turned to his advantage much lesss the moderators.

Michael K said...

I noticed the loud audience and that was a big reason I quickly turned it off. A favorite movie was on, "Broadcast News."

Michael K said...

"the Fox moderators had made plans for Trump to be removed from the stage by security if he refused to obey them."

Is that true ? Any evidence ? I thought they did a lousy job but I haven't heard this.

Hagar said...

The Kelo decision was not about using eminent domain for private development, strictly speaking. It was the City of Kelo itself acting like a private developer, engaging in a speculative venture and using eminent domain to further it, which confused the issue.

John said...

Re:"drafting women into combat. I never thought this idea would even be acceptable let alone popular or even — has it come to this?"

Having just left the AF after both a military and civilian career I believe there is a cause-effect relationship here that may be lost to many.

Let's start with the understanding today's military is 100% voluntary and the draft serves only to create a database from which to draw from should the nation decide to return to non-volunteer force for some reason.

For the last 40 years of my personal experience a woman's role in the the military has dramatically expanded as they fought for and achieved equality (not unlike the experiences of other groups). With the recent Secretary of Defense decision to open ALL jobs, including the combat arms of Infantry, Armor, Artillery and Special Forces, to women any logical justification for exclusion from the draft ceases to exist.

It seems a rather sexist view to hold women are capable of performing all the jobs, but should be excluded from the obligation because of their gender. Isn't equality a two-way street?

robinintn said...

I see what you did there, embracing the ridiculously expanded and infinitly flexible definition of bullying, and then applying the new usage to the expandors. Very nice work. Also, I too wonder if it's true about the audience makeup.

Oso Negro said...

John - it almost seems as if Althousian feminism was for nominal equality in conversation, enforced equality in any area of endeavor that was of interest to women, and a nod and a wink when it came to the heavy lifting.

tds said...

"Rubio malfunctions" is nothing short of brilliant. By the way I wonder what Rubio answers when asked to "Prove he's not a robot" by CAPTCHA

Oso Negro said...

It was a good line by Rubio the first time he said it. Doubtful the second. By the third, fourth, and fifth, it was pathetic. I doubt he recovers from that. Christie killed Rubio.

Michael K said...

"any area of endeavor that was of interest to women, and a nod and a wink when it came to the heavy lifting."

My understanding is that the pressure for combat arms jobs is coming from female officers who want ticket punches for promotion. I understand there is no pressure from enlisted females. My Air Force time was many years ago so you may have more current info.

tds said...

Since "Obama knows exactly what he's doing" rant is pretty much finished, I can't wait what Rubio writers come up with next.

Oso Negro said...

Michael K - I have no doubt you are correct. Normal females would have no interest in daily life in combat arms. But the policy-makers in the Obama Administration are not normal females.

Bob Ellison said...

Christie just thanked Chris Wallace for coming on the show (Fox News Sunday). Wallace double-took and asked Christie had said, and Christie said he had taken over the show, and they might as well switch chairs.

My impression was that it was a mistaken impression at first on Christie's part, but damn, that man is quick. Really funny piece.

amielalune said...


Michael K:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ct-fox-baier-debate-20150809-story.html

buwaya said...

Since the proportion of "tail" to "tooth" in modern militaries is so high, and because women are useful in "tail" positions, I don't see why they shouldn't be drafted. They certainly can be useful to backfill manpower requirements. Whether this is as good a use of their abilities in wartime vs filling in for men in the general economy and defense industries is another question - Britain for instance was constrained in its WWII manpower budget not just because it was tapped out of men, but it was short of women for "Rosie the riveter" jobs. It was a general labor shortage.
The really big problem is the effect of casualties.
Women in combat is a huge problem. A society simply can't afford to lose women.
Women -girls really- as cannon fodder in a genuine war is demographically idiotic. This can only be justified in extreme cases, as when the alternative is genocide.
And the morale-destroying effect of casualties will be magnified many times, when the dead and the maimed are teenage girls. Human nature doesn't stretch that far.

Original Mike said...

Just watched Christie on Chris Wallace's show. Does anyone talk faster than Christie? As the interview ended Christie said to Wallace, "Great to have you on, Chris". Wallace: "Did you just say 'Great to have you on, Chris,"? Christie, "Yeah, I've pretty much taken over the show".

CStanley said...

I missed the beginning and tuned in shortly before an exchange that Ruio had which I thought was excellent (about strategy to take out ISIs.) he gave a detailed answer that did not feel canned at all, and in fact for the first time I was happy that he didn't seem robotic.

Then checked out all the reports this morning about the takedown by Christie that I had missed. Oh well.

I like both Christie and Rubio, but have reasons to dislike both of them too. Since Christie has no chance, I'm leaning toward either Rubio or Cruz and hoping one of them will make it easier for me to vote for him. So in a way I wish that earlier exchange with Christie hadn't happened. But it's possible that this is just what Rubio needed- to be roughed up. Hopefully he'll spend some time reviewing those tapes and see what he needs to do. My first suggestion- use contractions! His speech is always "we are" and we will not" instead of "we're" and we won't". He sounds like he is reciting a written text instead of talking, and this one change would make a difference.

Original Mike said...

Bob Ellison is living in my head.

Phil 314 said...

After every debate the pundits claim it "was Bush's best performance". Was he that bad at the first or have the pundits bought their own " non-debate" punditry?

Carson and Kascich demonstrate that neither firm convictions nor a strong record necessarily make a good candidate.

Cruz has to curtail his use of practices, unfunny quips. And stop tapping/pounding the lecture!

Wince said...

Democrats "take-on" their opponents and "special interests".

Republicans "bully".

rhhardin said...

Bullies and cowards. What's the beef.

Original Mike said...

Yeah, Cruz has to stop trying to use humor. He's not good at it.

Phil 314 said...

Regarding the Rubio line "Obama knows exactly what he's doing". If I understand the logic of that, the next obvious statement is "and I'm just like Obama" (i.e. "I know what I'm doing!").

Dangerous.

Michael K said...

amielalune, thanks. I hadn't seen that. I think it also explains some of Megyn Kelly's behavior at that first debate which I thought very unprofessional. She was hoping for a big confrontation and was too obvious about it.

Bob Ellison said...

Original Mike, great minds think alike. And your post was better.

Virgil Hilts said...

Christie was quick on his feet and winning the debate, but he ended up being a bully. After he bloodied Rubio (caused him to lose a gasket and have his tonearm skip-using the new robot motif), about 20 minutes later Christie decided he had to spit on the corpse.
None of them seemed like a happy warrior and angry red-faced Trump is really off-putting.
Did Reagan come off this angry in debates? I did think Trump had a point about the audience; they were over-applauding the bland and under-applauding the good.

Michael K said...

"Britain for instance was constrained in its WWII manpower budget not just because it was tapped out of men, "

The British Army was very short of men and that affected the Normandy campaign. What is not widely appreciated was that the US Army was short of infantry by the Battle of the Bulge. Congress and the draft were resisting Marshall's calls for more recruits because they assumed the war was won. Eisenhower went through the ranks in rear echelons and took a lot of non-combatants for the infantry.

Shouting Thomas said...

... it almost seems as if Althousian feminism was for nominal equality in conversation, enforced equality in any area of endeavor that was of interest to women, and a nod and a wink when it came to the heavy lifting.

Ruthless and unapologetic self-interest of the kind that no man would dare to express has always seemed to me to be the prof's dominant personality trait.

This is what her "cruel neutrality" is actually about. Heads I win! Tails you lose!

(I don't have anything against this from a moral standpoint, although it is quite an unattractive aesthetic trait in a woman.)

Michael K said...

"Did Reagan come off this angry in debates?"

Reagan was a better actor than any of these guys and I mean that as a compliment. He kept cool when Carter was getting angry.

"There you go again."

T J Sawyer said...

" Trump bulling the audience:"

Freudian slip? Or cruel neutrality?

Etienne said...

Once you allow homosexuals into the military, drafting women doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.

Plus, most of the 19-20 age group is unfit physically to serve, so women allow you to double your pool.

C R Krieger said...

And The Secretary of the Navy has banned the use of the term "man", as in rifleman, as the Marines say.

I believe there are demographic/social issues, as already noted, but fair is fair. We make the infantry positions open to women who can cut it, we make them subject to the draft, whether the rest of the women want it or not.

Regards  —  Cliff

Hagar said...

I did not serve in a regular infantry company, but from basic training I still remember spending a very cold and boring night in a foxhole with a fellow recruit, sitting on each other's boot toes to keep them warm.
Now if I was a female and spending such a night with Ahmed ....

Very little of an infantry soldier's life is spent in combat, but the dreary routines in uncomfortable environments are endless.

Maybe drafting of civilians for actual military service will not ever come to pass again, but I bet this is a kind of legislation that will draw a lot of unintended and unexpected consequences along with it. Never underestimate the fertile imaginations of lawyers - in or out of Government bureaucracies!

khesanh0802 said...

Very simple; if women are equal to men - as they argue and expect - then being registered for the draft is a no brainer. I don't even understand why there is a debate.

The demographic reality is an entirely different issue. Eating your seed corn is never a good idea, but the idiots in Washington forget that people get killed in combat regardless of sex.

To me requiring that women register for the draft is just a big middle finger to the most rabid of feminists.

David Begley said...

Trump clearly trying to confuse voters on ED.

Theranter said...

Blogger sydney said...Is it true about the donors?
Allegedly the Trump camp was only given 20 tickets. But then other reports state all the candidates were only given 20, and the rest/majority of the crowd were students. Which I could believe if they weren't so gung-ho for Bush.

Francisco D said...

"Trump clearly trying to confuse voters on ED"

I wonder if he is a Cialis or Viagra user.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Now that the oligarch's rent boy has been exposed as a poorly programmed robot by the fat fuck from Trenton, a key issue arises. Was he manufactured in the USA? Given the oligarch's desire to send all manufacturing jobs to low wage countries, can we be certain that the Rubio Robot™ was not made in China? Is he a natural made robot?

Bob Ellison said...

Trump's eminent domain argument is high-school stuff for the low-information voter. Trump's "make Mexico build the wall", "make America great again", and hell, everything he says is designed for the low-information voter.

When he flames out, it won't be pretty.

rodii said...

I love it when people confidently lecture others and are just flatly, nonsensically wrong. To wit, Hagar: " It was the City of Kelo itself"... (in bold yet).

I'm sure Susette Kelo would be surprised by her promotion to the status of city. But it was the city of New London, Connecticut.

Bob Ellison said...

AReasonableMan, it's nice to see you coming over to the other side's arguments.

I'll try that take: why doesn't Hillary advocate taxing wealth? The billionaires are the big problem. She once said about oil-company profits, "I wanna take those profits".

Hey, Hillary, take those profits! Take my income! Take your own income! Take 'em! Be the socialist that lies inside you.

Hagar said...

Whoopee! indeed. A big flub on my part, but a flub, not ignorant on principle. It was the City of New London that intended to extend the business park in hope of making a profit on future commercial development, so that it was in fact acting like a private land developer and should have been treated as one.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Bob Ellison said...
Trump's eminent domain argument is high-school stuff for the low-information voter.


Not exactly. Keystone Pipeline was going to be built by a private Canadian company Trans Canada. In fact most large infrastructure projects in the US are built by private companies, because governments generally lack the expertise to carry out significant civil engineering projects. This is something Trump knows well but Bush is apparently clueless about. I guess when Bush was running up the housing bubble in Florida he thought he thought all the necessary infrastructure came from the infrastructure fairy.

bleh said...

Is it just me or was Chris Christie also repeating a canned line about "plowing snow" or some such?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

It took some balls to stand up on national television and call out the hall's audience as a bunch of shills for the status quo. I thought it would backfire on him at the time but it worked out well. Trump is a tough mofo, I think he can bounce back from Iowa.

Anonymous said...

Trump's answer on eminent domain needs the context of where he has lived. In rural America, his answer can sound off.

But think of his answer in the context of Manhattan.

rcocean said...

No, no. Trump didn't 'bully' the audience - he threatened them. Some of them are probably tweeting about it, right now.

As usual Trump was the master of pushback and standing up for himself. Thereby showing that Trump is the Alpha and rest are followers.

traditionalguy said...

Eminent Domain is a forced sale to a Governmental entity or a Utility given that power by the State.

The argument is always whether the taking is paid for by paying the FMV of the land without adding consequential damages to the rest of the land, and how much that is. This makes a strong argument to just take it all even if only half is needed. When the Statewantsto be mean they make the owner keep the unneeded half.

The side with the best witness appraisers that can talk to the middle class jury are the lottery winners.

The emotional claptrap about Daddy and Momma's land being stolen is used to inflate jury's sympathies. It is all BS squared.

Jeff said...

Bush seemed like he was referring to a court decision somewhere holding pipelines to be a public use. I know next to nothing about eminent domain law, but I expect he's correct on that. If so, Trump probably knows it as well. By his own admission Trump knows a lot about eminent domain. So if Bush was correct, Trump was most likely lying in an effort to make Bush look bad. I got the impression that he didn't expect Bush to know what he was talking about, but as Bush mentioned, he was governor when Rubio pushed through major revisions to eminent domain law in Florida.

Rubio looked bad. It's not just that he appeared to be unable to think on his feet and fell back repeatedly on the same talking point, it's that the talking point he fell back on was atrocious. He was trying to counter the notion that a first-term senator is not necessarily unprepared to be President by saying that Obama was not unprepared, just evil. Even if that's true (and I'm not sure it is, particularly in foreign policy) I am flabbergasted that his political brain trust thought this line could work. Nobody does this because it's been shown time and time again that it doesn't work. You don't get votes by calling your opponent a bad guy, you say he's misguided or naive. Calling the other guy evil appeals only to the people whose votes you already have, and it turns off the independents. How can a professional pol not know that?

Christie knows this as well. Attack dogs do not get votes. What we saw last night was Christie auditioning for the VP slot for whoever gets the nomination. It may work, but it's more likely that the spot will go to one of the female governors.

Dude1394 said...

Christie BULLIED Rubio, that is utterly ridiculous. If anything once rubio was caught he just decided to filibuster, if anyone is bullying in a debate that is it.

Dude1394 said...

I also saw the laughing that has been going on at Carson's expense for not hearing his name called in the auditorium because of the noise. Mr. Trump stood there and decided not to go out until Carson was recognized properly. Very magnanimous and speaks to his real character imo.

n.n said...

The people are beholden to special interests. The welfare state is the best example of mass indifference and submission in a "secular" society. And in societies that reject individual dignity and intrinsic value, selectively, it is a first-order cause of catastrophic anthropogenic government withholding, as well as progressive dysfunction and corruption.

Sydney said...

Finally had time to google Kelo and refresh my memory. It was Souter I associated with the decision. He was a George H.W. Bush appointee. I know Presidents have no control over how their appointees will vote, but Souter went on to vote reliably with the liberals. Kelo was, for me, the moment I lost faith in our system. The city of New London condemned perfectly sound private property in order to build it up for a corporation - Pfizer. It's a stretch to see how that was a fair public use. According to Wikipedia, karma is alive and well. Over ten years, and the land stands empty.
I am sure Jeb Bush and his donors (if that was who was doing the booing in the audience) felt they had Trump with this issue, since he's the kind of developer who benefits from this misapplication of eminent domain, but is there any reason to believe that Jeb Bush will do any better at appointing Supreme Court justices than his father or brother (-cough-Roberts-cough-)?

gadfly said...

Hagar said...
The Kelo decision was not about using eminent domain for private development, strictly speaking. It was the City of New London acting like a private developer, engaging in a speculative venture and using eminent domain to further it, which confused the issue. (I fixed it.)

Yeah - so the City was working a deal with Pfizer to get a Laboratory built that would employ a whole bunch of people on the site containing the Kelo house. But the deal fell through and Pfizer left town.

jr565 said...

Rubio was clunky on that one bit, but it wasn't an insurmountable problem. Simpy vary your message to not make the same point. he made a lot of good points later on
But, Its not as if Christie doesn't do the same thing from debate to debate. What with his "as a former prosecutor..." We get it. you were a former prosecutor.

"CHRISTIE: No. Let’s make something very clear. I learned seven years as a federal prosecutor in dealing with types of situations like we’re talking about in North Korea"

Christie, what were you before you were governor? Were you a federal prosecutor?.

jr565 said...

Phil wrote:
Regarding the Rubio line "Obama knows exactly what he's doing". If I understand the logic of that, the next obvious statement is "and I'm just like Obama" (i.e. "I know what I'm doing!").

No, he was saying Obama is not achievning results accidentally, He knows what he is doing and its part of his plan to remake America. OThers seem to be suggesting he was incompetent.