THERE IS ONLY ONE SIDE

by Ryan Andrews

Ever since president Trump’s surprisingly precise blaming of “many sides” (not “all sides” or “both sides”) for the recent sad events in Charlottesville, the media and the political establishment have been howling about his supposed false moral equivalency. (It would have been more presidential, I gather, if he had acted according to president Obama’s example, and leveled inflammatory accusations before the facts are known.)

EXPLOITING PEOPLE'S FEARS

The latest stand-up UK election debate (sans Cameron and Clegg)

by Colin Liddell

While stand-up comedians try to "slay" the audience, stand-up politicians have a different target, namely their opponents. "Stand-up politicians," by the way, are just normal politicians coached and brought into the TV studios to participate in stand up debates against their opponents. 

The dream is to achieve a knock-out blow that will be replayed over-and-over in subsequent days, by looking one's opponent in the eyes, pausing, then, when everybody is listening, dropping a bombshell on him or her; like Lloyd Bentsen's famous "You're no Jack Kennedy" line, delivered in the 1988 Vice-Presidential debate to a hapless Dan Quayle, who had been nurturing sub-Kennedyesque posturings for some time.

That moment defined Quayle's career until he had a spot of trouble with his spelling a few years later. It is also the only reason that anybody ever remembers Bentsen, who was clearly no Jack Kennedy himself.