To hell with the potential all-white Democratic debate!

I'm reading "'It’s a shame': Castro, Booker blast potential all-white Democratic debate lineup after Harris drops out."

"Blast" is an old-timey euphemism, befitting a party whose front-runner says "malarkey."

I get out my OED. "Blast" means "To strike or visit with the wrath and curse of heaven." Selected historical examples:

1793 T. Hastings Regal Rambler 74 Leaving all the ladies below to blast or bless their eyes, no matter which.
1823 W. Scott St. Ronan's Well I. viii. 197 ‘As I think, he laid hands on your body...’ ‘Hands,..no, blast him—not so bad as that neither.’
1955 N. Marsh Scales of Justice ix. 209 ‘Damnation, blast and bloody hell!’ Alleyn said.

"Malarkey" is U.S. slang that means " Humbug, bunkum, nonsense; a palaver, racket. (Usually of an event, activity, idea, utterance, etc., seen as trivial, misleading, or not worthy of consideration.)" Selected historical examples:

1924 Indiana (Pa.) Evening Gaz. 12 Mar. 13/1 The rest of the chatter is so much malarkey, according to a tip so straight that it can be passed thru a peashooter without touching the sides.
1938 Down Beat Mar. 5/4 We've got to say to the recording companies..‘Cut out the Mullarkey and give us some down-home stuff!’
1958 Sunday Times 20 Apr. 31/1 I will only give you the politician's malarky about imponderables and changing circumstances.

Why, you might ask, are Cory Booker and Julian Castro the ones blasting the potential all-whiteness of the December debate? They have presented themselves as nonwhite.

“I’m a little angry, I have to say, that we started with one of the most diverse fields in our history, giving people pride,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).... “And it’s a damn shame now that the only African American woman in this race, who has been speaking to issues that need to be brought up, is now no longer in it.”

Booker has yet to qualify for the debate. The implication is you Democrats had sure as hell better get me into that debate or you're in immense trouble.

With the deadline to qualify days away, four white men and two white women have qualified so far, including former vice president Joe Biden, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, billionaire Tom Steyer, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who are both nonwhite candidates, each need one more good poll to qualify, whereas Booker, who is black, and former housing secretary Julián Castro haven’t hit 4 percent in any of the required polls. Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, who is black, entered the race Nov. 14 and also does not have any qualifying polls....

It must be so frustrating to Booker (and Harris) to see how many black people just really like Biden. Blond leg hair and all.

Twin to twin.

In a lighter moment, Rep. Joaquin Castro, referring to his brother Julian Castro, speaks to Lt. Col. Vindman: “It’s great to talk to a fellow identical twin. I hope that your brother is nicer to you than mine is to me. And doesn’t make you grow a beard.” pic.twitter.com/N3g1pYvsAM

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) November 19, 2019

"We cannot keep with the Republican talking points on this. You got to stop."

Said Kamala Harris at the Democratic Party candidates' debate last night. She was pushing back Michael Bennet, who'd said that her health-care plan would eliminate employer-based insurance and cost an amount of money equal to 70% of what government collects in taxes. She goes on to say that employer-based private insurance that follows all the new rules can continue and people will have a choice between "a private Medicare plan" and "a public Medicare plan."

I don't want to attempt to compare the various health-care plans (and I don't believe that electing a particular candidate will result in our getting their plan any more than electing Trump got us a border wall (and Mexico will pay for it!)).

I just want to talk about the rhetoric "Republican talking point." It wasn't just Kamala Harris. It was Joe Biden: "This is not a Republican talking point." And Julian Castro: "Open borders is a right-wing talking point."

And (to go back to the Tuesday night debate), Elizabeth Warren said it twice: "We should stop using Republican talking points in order to talk with each other...." And "What you want to do instead is find the Republican talking point of a made-up piece of some other part and say, Oh, we don't really have to do anything."

There was Bernie Sanders: "And, Jake, your question is a Republican talking point."

Marianne Williamson used the phrase, but warily: "And I do have concern about what the Republicans would say. And that's not just a Republican talking point."

It's such a cliché already that its usefulness may already be gone, but let me do my part to try to kill it. I assume — and I am a moderate voter in Wisconsin, capable of going for either party's candidate — that the Republicans' talking points are their best arguments on all the various issues. A Democratic Party candidate, to be any good, better demonstrate skill at countering these arguments, these talking points!

It's especially bad to use the line against the debate moderator, as Bernie did — "Jake, your question is a Republican talking point." It sounds as though he's implying that Jake Tapper should go easy on him and not challenge him with the very arguments he'll have to deal with if he's the Democratic Party candidate.

And it's terrible to use the phrase as a way to refuse to deal with a problem with your position. Julian Castro said "open borders is a right-wing talking point, and frankly I'm disappointed that some folks, including some folks on this stage, have taken the bait." His whole argument was Shut up, you sound like a Republican. And he wasn't even talking to the other candidates. He was talking to one of the moderators (Don Lemon), who had quoted President Obama's homeland security secretary, Jeh Johnson. Your immigration policy sounds like open borders! If it's not open borders, you'd better explain why!

And look at that Kamala Harris quote I put in the title: "We cannot keep with the Republican talking points on this. You got to stop." You've got the slang "We cannot keep with" and the (intentionally?) bad grammar "You got to stop." Is that supposed to be sassy and cute? To me, it sounds tired and unprepared. Or worse... it sounds like you know your policy is bad and vulnerable to attack but you're going to bull forward with it anyway. It's the best you got... the best you've got.

"Republican talking point" is a Democratic talking point.

It's about to begin: The big debate.

1. Are you interested? If so, why? Is it mainly to read Trump's tweets? I know I've been skipping all the articles on how to watch the debates and what might happen at the debates. I'm afraid it's just going to be tedious sequences of similar answers to predictable issues — we really must take climate change seriously and so forth. There will be preloaded zingers to zing. Maybe somebody will interrupt someone in a half-spontaneous way or show some unexpected charisma. But I don't expect anything interesting to happen.

2. The pulsating background is making the candidates look jittery. Maybe they are jittery, but I've got to look away because it's searing my eyeballs.

3. Beto speaks Spanish for many sentences. ADDED:

Cory Booker's facial expression when Beto starts speaking in Spanish#DemDebate pic.twitter.com/VrZiOh5Rzu

— Cate Martel (@CateMartel) June 27, 2019

4. What was the question to Tulsi Gabbard? Please recite your bio?

5. I don't get the sideburns on Bill de Blasio... all the way to the bottom of the earlobe. Who does that? Speaking of how they look, why doesn't Beto wear the right size collar? It looks ridiculous for a man to wear a gaping collar.

6. My son John is live-blogging. Check it out. It's sure to be more substantive than anything I'm willing to do.

7. Hand-raising time. Only Warren and de Blasio raise their hand for who wants to abolish all private health insurance.

8. Whoa! The moderators lost control. De Blasio takes over and badgers Beto about private health insurance. Why would Beto defend something that's not working?, de Blasio asks, smirking.

9. Beto needs a new toupee. The natural hair has gone grayer, making the real/fake line obvious.

10. First time anyone ever said "piss" in an American presidential debate. Julian Castro declared himself "pissed off" (about our treatment of immigrants).

11. Booker is copying Beto, speaking whole sentences in Spanish.

10. Booker called Julian Castro "Jose"!

11. Trump weighs in with one word:

BORING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2019

12. They switch over to new moderators — Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd — but then they have a major microphone snafu. They had to go to another break, and I turned it off. I've got it on the DVR, but I don't know. There's already some sleeping going on here.