Donald Trump and his debate nonsense

Donald Trump is still attacking the grieving parents of a U.S. soldier who gave his life for our country, but somehow, he keeps distracting us from the crazy bullshit he spouts by saying even more crazy bullshit on other topics.

I don't know quite how that works, but it does seem to work. After all, even I'm chasing him down this new rabbit hole. But only a little ways, I hope.

Trump is already trying to run away from debating Hillary Clinton. She's not a great debater, but one-on-one, she'd slaughter him. Really. There's just no question of that. As I say, she's not a great debater, but she knows her stuff.

Donald Trump could get away with insults, bravado, and showmanship in the Republican debate circus, with lots of candidates and no substance. But a one-on-one comparison with the time to actually debate? He'd be stomped into the dirt. And he knows it.

So he's already trying to run away. And in his first attempt to set the stage for that, he's accused Hillary Clinton of "trying to rig the debates."

Josh Marshall at TPM explains just how idiotic that is:

In his first effort to scuttle the Fall presidential debates Donald Trump has suggested that Hillary Clinton is trying to rig the debates by scheduling them during must-watch NFL games.

Is this true? Not a trick question! Since it's come up a lot I want to lay out some basic facts about Trump's latest claim.

1. Did Hillary Clinton do this?

No, of course not. The Commission on Presidential debates has overseen all presidential debates going back to the 1980s. The commission is bipartisan (co-chaired by one Republican and one Democrat) and announced the dates for this year's debates on September 23rd, 2015. This year's NFL schedule was announced in April 2016.

Marshall goes on to point out the obvious problems with scheduling and how previous debates have been no different. You can read the whole thing, if you want. But I want to close with one little excerpt that's just so typical of Donald J. Trump:

4. Did Donald Trump get a letter from the NFL complaining about the schedule?

No. He lied about that. Earlier this week Trump told ABC News: "It's against two NFL games. I got a letter from the NFL saying, 'This is ridiculous.'"

An NFL spokesman said categorically that the NFL never sent a letter about the debates to Trump.

I still think that Donald Trump will find an excuse to run away from debating Hillary Clinton. At the very least, he'll try to limit the damage by debating only once or twice. But if I had to bet, I'd go with him running away from all of them.

After all, he seems to suffer no consequences from anything.