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This week we'll be looking back at last night's debate, choosing our celebrity of the week, and showcasing some great art exhibits.
The problem President Biden had in his debate with felon and former president Donald Trump was that he looked and sounded his age. Trump may have been getting his facts right, but in this format it hardly matters. Unfortunately, allowing Trump to churn out lies without fact-checking is playing into the hands of a compulsive liar.
Biden talked up his economic accomplishments, repeated the debt figures, blasted Trump for overturning Roe v. Wade (and claimed Trump would sign a nationwide abortion ban), reiterated details of his border plan, and denounced Trump's “lies” about veterans and immigration. Biden showed genuine anger when he repeated Gen. John Kelly's revelation that Trump had called fallen service members “morons” and “losers.”
Biden lashed out, criticized Trump for threatening retaliation against his opponents, declared him to have “the moral code of a wild cat,” attacked Trump for praising neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, and claimed Trump doesn't understand democracy. He brought up the vice president and his advisers who refused to endorse Trump. And he made it clear on stage that Trump was the only felon. “And now he's telling me there'll be a bloodbath if he loses again, whiner?” Biden said. He was most effective when he attacked Trump head on.
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Meanwhile, Trump, as expected, continued to lie. He claimed Biden only gave jobs to illegal immigrants, claimed the world no longer respected the United States, claimed illegal immigrants were on Social Security and Medicare, pretended that other countries were paying tariffs, claimed babies were being killed after birth, claimed “everyone” wanted abortions to come back to the United States, claimed Biden had “opened” borders, and claimed the United States “has no borders.” On the issue of immigration, Trump fantasized about putting illegal immigrants up in luxury hotels. He denied saying dead military personnel were “idiots” and “losers.” Oddly, he claimed multiple times that NATO was bankrupt. (He still doesn't understand that our European allies support NATO not by “paying for” it, but through their own defense budgets.) Most appallingly, he claimed Biden encouraged Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He even claimed credit for Biden's efforts to lower the price of insulin drugs.
As the debate continued, Trump began to show how out of touch he was with reality (such as saying former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had refused to call in the National Guard, a nasty lie). He defended the January 6th rioters (after trying to avoid the question), claimed Biden was a criminal, and refused to say definitively whether he would accept the election results. Biden grew stronger and angrier as the debate went on. But he would not stay silent on the question about his age.
The debate format allowed Trump to unleash a steady stream of nonsense and lies; Biden was forced to play whack-a-mole; it would be humanly impossible to knock them all down under those circumstances, but Biden did an expert job, gaining an advantage as the 90 minutes went by (noting, for example, that the economy was “totally broken” when Biden took office).
Without a live fact-check by a moderator, Trump can lie shamelessly. This format doesn't work on hardcore liars. But Trump occasionally shows his true colors and displays a total inability to answer direct questions about policy (he couldn't answer any questions about child care or opioids, for example). It's still a little disheartening that millions of Americans will vote for him.
This week's celebrity
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci's memoir, “On Call: A Doctor's Journey as a Public Servant,” offers a timely look back at the career of a scientist who saved millions of lives at home and abroad. “When Dr. Fauci was appointed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, he outraged conservative colleagues by expanding funding for AIDS research and launching a program focused on the disease,” a Washington Post editorial states. “He then lobbied the George W. Bush administration to enact the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which distributed AIDS treatments around the world and saved millions of lives.”
Fauci weathered feuds with Trump and attacks from his nefarious MAGA allies. But it's his rapid vaccine development and his role as a public health educator that Americans should remember. “Fauci became the nation's chief communicator and a hero to many Americans as a straight-talker, even when his candor put him at odds with the nation's commander in chief,” USA Today's Susan Page wrote. (As for Trump, Fauci told USA Today, “I worry about anyone who doesn't tell the truth. … I think more people would have taken the vaccine if he had been a big pusher.”)
One feature stands out throughout his long career. In an interview with CNN, he said:
What drove me was empathy. Empathy has been my motivation in medicine and everything I've done, and it goes back, as I write in the book, to my family – my parents and my training in the Jesuit schools. There is empathy for people who are in trouble and who are suffering.
Combining empathy with listening means forgetting about screaming and yelling and just listening to what the other person is saying.
While many people run for public office for the wrong reasons, Fauci is the perfect counterexample: He ran for public office for the right reasons, and that was never for himself, but always for the lives of others.
My favorite museum in Washington, the National Portrait Gallery, not only displays beautiful artwork but also documents American presidents, the Civil War, environmentalism, the West, and protest movements (“The Struggle for Justice.”) Their current special exhibit, “Glorious Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939,” is one of the most interesting.
The women depicted in paintings, photographs, and sculpture fled to Paris in the early 20th century to escape gender norms, racism, and cultural homogeneity. Some of the names are well known (such as Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, and Isadora Duncan); others are less well known (such as painter Romaine Brooks, author and literary salon hostess Natalie Clifford Barney, Harlem Renaissance painter Lois Maillot Jones, and nightclub owner Ada “Bricktop” Smith). This is a reflection of gender bias, not their artistic excellence. Documenting the women's vibrant social and intellectual connections, the exhibition reveals how an artistic community can be more than the sum of its parts.
These women did not “fit” into early 20th century America because of their race, gender, sexual identity or creative inclinations. By traveling abroad and interacting with each other, they reinvented themselves and reshaped American art, interior design, dance, theater and literature. The exhibits are extensive, but they leave you wanting to know more about these talented women.
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