Inside Your TV

FOTP News in Review for . . . Sunday, July 7th, 2024

When discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses of teams, Kenny Mayne, former co-anchor of SportsCenter and backup QB at University of Nevada, Las Vegas — which if not home to the ugliest campus in America is not from lack of trying — used to say, for instance, “On paper, the Patriots are the best team in football,” but then add, “Of course football isn’t played on paper. It’s played inside your TV.”

The same could be said of presidential politics.

On paper, when it comes to things like the unemployment rate, the economy, keeping people in Kiev (so far at least) from being forced to possess and feature Vladimir Putin figurines in their kitchen and, yes, managing the situation at our border where illegal immigration has actually gone down, President Joe Biden has proven himself to be a far superior politician and, for that matter, human being than the man who hopes to make America something Hungary’s President Viktor Orbán can be proud of —Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance’s attempt to turn Donald Trump into this generation’s John Walton notwithstanding.

More on that shortly.

But presidential politics isn’t played on paper, either — it, too, is played inside your TV. And good God, what was playing inside it on Thursday, June 27th.

None of this is fair or as it should be. Even if you conclude Biden just had a bad night — and if you do, I want the rose tint in my glasses you have in yours — many in the Democratic Party are now suffering from PTSD and wondering if he should resign the presidency. Contrast that with what’s going on in GOP. Donald Trump was recently convicted of 34 felony charges, and this was on top of him being convicted of fingering a woman against her will in a department store dressing room — not to mention the multiple indictments still out there against him — and no two Republicans hands anywhere wrung in despair.

Such is the difference in the souls of parties. The GOP is impossible to shame.

(One more thing on the debate. Watch it again. You could tell before they even got to their podiums, it wasn’t going to be good. Trump lumbered on to the stage like an aging bull. Hunched over, perhaps, slower, but still with his patented snarl, while Biden puttered in like an old man looking for his table at an assisted living facility dining room.)

Which brings to the Sunday morning news shows . . .