That being said, the debate broke down the door for certain types of criticism.

I am not trying to pull the proverbial wool over someone's eyes and say Biden has a great debate. sheesh we all wanted him to go an slap the dumplings out of Trump..

But that is not how it played.. Trump was a horror of nothing but lies and if you read the answers a person goes right right.. yeah thats right about Bidens content

I think they may be starting to calm down .. I see our leadership starting to pull back on the reins.. and get people to slow down and take a breathe.. breath media, just breath.. Some have tied themselves up so tight in these knots

in WIKI called the "GISH GALLOP"...............A well known technique in debate used to quite literally mind F and overwhelm your debate opponent.

It was a perfect explanation for what happened to Biden. And yet, I have not seen it talked about anywhere.......

Of course, you won't see it most of the U.S. Media......95+% of ALL MEDIA IN THE U.S. IS OWNED BY UBER RICH REPUBLICANS OR CORPORATIONS.........

Look it up! Since Trump has a propensity to use that technique somewhat all the time in his rally's, interviews, or his speeches, it was only natural he would turn it up all the way for the Debate with Biden. Why didn't Biden's advisers prepare him for it, and most of all how to counter it?????????????

That's how I learned about it.

Even my whole liberal family knows about it now.

We need to do it to them!

The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by abandoning formal debating principles, providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments and that are impossible to address adequately in the time alloted to the opponent. Gish galloping prioritizes the quantity of the galloper's arguments at the expense of their quality.

Biden should do his best to ignore every word out of Trump's mouth and do his best to answer the question the moderator asks because no one can drink from a firehose.

by having the opposing side appear to be out of touch, slow and unprepared.

That's how I learned about it.

It is impossible to counter each lie, especially in a debate format, because there are so many that come so rapidly. They are so outrageous that they have the effect of leaving the interviewer, or debate opponent in this case, so stunned that they search for a comeback while the next several lies are still spewing.

For someone with a stutter, that is very problematic. They trip over their own words and lose their train of thought before they can respond. Add to that some fatigue, not just from the European travel, but from a busy schedule after returning home. Add to that a cold. (And maybe cold medicine? )

In 2020, Trump's aggressive demeanor in the debates was intended to throw Biden into a stutter that would make him look bad. It failed because Trump just came across as the clod that he is and Biden kept his cool.

But this time around, I am 100% certain that Trump was coached on the gish gallop prior to the debate. Yeah, he lied when he said that he did not prep for it.

In the normal business of a president, a gish galloping person is not a problem. He can just walk away. He will have advisors with him who can join him in rebutting the fast and furious lies. He can just say, "I will not engage in this kind of nonsense. Come back when you are ready to talk sense." Boom. End of problem.

But a debate candidate cannot do that. He has to respond with 1 and 2 minute limits to a slew of outrageous lies that would take a whole day to put down. And he also has to present his own positive, contructive views and policies.

So, I have zero concerns about Biden's cognitive abilities. Considering what he was dealing with in Trump, the constraints of the debate setting, his cold and being tired from his schedule, Biden did as well as anyone else in the same situation would have done.

However, it seems this has been true for most, if not all, Democratic presidential candidates in the past three decades.

The media tends to use different standards when judging Democrats than they do for republicans. I'm not even sure that most of them realize they are doing it. They seem to be programmed that way and it has become second nature to them.

is a seasoned reporter has been around and thanks for calling out imperfections of the media.

The media is owned, censored, and manipulated by the billionaires at the very top. They are motivated by greed and power alone; they feel they will remain at the top regardless of the dystopian chaos created by an insane Generalissimo as head. I’m convinced that in some cases these morbidly rich feel they will even be better off.

When is it going to end?

This is the only thing that the Republicans have to run on.

We need to hammer back on Trump's future plans and his past record mercilessly. But I don't know if the Democrats are up to the job. We are still too busy screwing ourselves.

A Dangerous Double Standard
All our energies must go to defeating Trump
Dan Rather and Team Steady
Jul 08, 2024


What a weekend. You know I have seen some things in my seven decades covering American politics. I have never seen anything quite like the wrangling, hand-wringing, and behind-the-scenes gamesmanship currently swirling around President Biden. These are compounded by the one-sided media coverage against Biden. And it isn’t over yet.

One thing is for certain: If Biden stays in the race, every step, every word, every gesture will be parsed, dissected, and magnified. This is the reality, at least for the Democrats. Trump? Not so much. Or really, very little.

Case in point: On Friday, Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. In the transcript of the interview released by ABC, Biden said, “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.” Several news organizations and the White House took issue with the word “goodest.” According to The New York Times, the ABC standards team listened again to the audio and changed “goodest” to “good as.” According to the Times, “Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.”

So here we are — one slightly hard to discern word in an otherwise coherent interview. And then there is the other guy. The one who can’t seem to string together a single coherent sentence — a fact news organizations don’t even bother mentioning any more. Try making sense of this gobbledegook from Trump’s remarks at a recent rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania:

“Our nation was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. The battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable. I mean it was so, was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways — it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow! I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And uh the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor — did you ever notice that? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill, he said. Wow, that was a big mistake, he lost his great general and uh they were fighting uphill. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys,’ but it was too late.”

What?? You may not have heard about this because it was “lightly” reported, i.e. not a word from The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, or the Associated Press. Jon Stewart did mention it on “The Daily Show,” saying it was “plagiarized, almost directly, from my seventh-grade book report, ‘Gettysburg, Wow.’”

Why are the rules so different for these two men? Both should be held accountable for their deeds and words. But they aren’t. Trump gets pass after pass.

The Republicans have hitched their wagon to a cult leader. They are willing to do just about anything to win back the White House: lie; obliterate the rules; blindly back a convicted felon, a cheater, a sexual assaulter, a Project 2025 promoter, a dictator on day one, and an insurrectionist. Maybe they should change their MAGA caps to say “The ends justify the means.”

The Democrats have, to this point, backed the president, a decent man who has devoted his life to the service of the country. Now that the proverbial chips are somewhere near rock-bottom, the party doesn’t know what to do. Remain loyal to a man who has objectively done a very good job after the debacle that was the Trump administration, and risk Trump 2.0? Or nudge Biden out in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris or any number of untested contenders? The finger-pointing and “blames-manship” will be epic if Trump wins. Where is this headed? As my father said, “he who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat a lot of broken glass.”

But for those of us who believe in the great American Experiment — a constitutional republic based on the principles of freedom and democracy — this is what it looks like, folks. It’s raucous, sometimes ugly, painful, and chock full of anxiety. But one thing we can do and are doing is speak freely. That could all change. Imagine a world where the Trump police track down naysayers and truth tellers. He has vowed retribution, even military tribunals for his political enemies. And then he would not be subject to prosecution. In our system of government, we have the right to question our leaders. If Trump wins, that could quickly disappear.

In the confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety of the moment, and amidst all the disappointing media coverage, it is time to remind ourselves once again what is at stake in this election.

Please know that we feel your anxiety and we welcome your insights, your frustration, your worries in the comments on this forum. It’s an open exchange. All I ask is that you remain respectful to your fellow Steady readers. Please, no name-calling or foul language. I enjoy reading your comments. We desperately need this passion come November. Our democracy depends on it.

He’s always been one of my heroes.

Was named for a real person maybe 20 or 30 years ago. I need to do my own research.

-90% jimmy

The media is poised and waiting for Joe to make one more mis-step, even as they continue to blow up his debate.

Trump, not at all.

Nothing could be more obvious.

But the MSM is ignoring it and focusing on Biden.

Biden is physically feeble, but brain sharp, in my estimation. Plus, Biden has the best team in the business.

Trump is physically more spry, but is out to lunch mentally and is pursuing an America-destroying agenda. Plus, if he wins, he'll bring in a team of impulsive, ignorant ghouls with a narrow, MAGA-serving agenda.

And trump certainly is nowhere near "spry". When have you ever seen him on a bike? When have you ever seen him even walking more than five steps to a podium? When he golfs he sits in a golf cart.

I have been extremely active all my life. I'm 75. A couple years ago I strained a ligament in my left leg in the area of my knee. I have a video of me walking with my toddler granddaughter back then and watched it a couple days ago and I saw me walking with a stiff leg like Joe does. I'm back to walking and biking again, but it took quite some time to recoup from that strained ligament. I also have some nerve impingement in my feet. I was a runner for ten years, have walked 3 or 4 miles every day for 30 years and it's taken a toll on my feet. I did physical therapy for months to strengthen that leg and the physical therapist said to me, "at your age you need to slow down and not be so active". She was about 50 years old and about 50 pounds overweight. I weigh the same as I have weighed most of my adult life. I refuse to just sit around and watch teevee and eat too much.

And wears a girdle.

nt