Common Sense: FOX to Trump: “You’re fired”

August 12, 2015 JERRY KASSAR

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The comment I most often hear when discussing Donald Trump’s performance in the first GOP debate is that Trump was Trump.

To my way of thinking, that was far from being presidential. Entertaining for sure, but not presidential. And his remark that U.S. bankruptcy laws make it okay for his business entities regularly to borrow money and not pay it back really makes him sound like some low life New York City real estate developer. Thus I would have to conclude that he hurt himself among prime Republican voters who will dominate the Republican selection process.

And the focus groups I saw immediately after the debate seemed to confirm my thoughts. Trump was not a serious contender among any of the groups being interviewed, including a well-organized one by Frank Luntz in Iowa.

Beyond the Trump failure, I did not take a lot away from the debate beyond a strong belief that the Republican Party has several candidates whom I could see as president. I have my personal favorites, which are Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, but several of the individuals at the primetime and earlier debate would make excellent presidents.

What should not be lost on those who only caught the prime time debate was the stand-out performance of Carly Fiorina in the earlier debate. Her strong personality and keen intellect were clearly on display. She wants to serve the American people and we would be fortunate were she in some capacity given the chance.

Fox News and in particular Megyn Kelly did seem to be asking too many “gotcha” questions to all the candidates. So much for fair and balanced. Regardless, there are something like eight more debates, so I assume the conversation will naturally drift more towards policy questions as the months tick by.

Senator Schumer as well as the overwhelming majority of the New York State Congressional delegation in a bi-partisan fashion have come out against the Iranian nuclear agreement. Schumer’s opposition came only shortly after the president made a key speech defending the agreement and the U.S. Senate held the first of its hearings.

I thought the president in his speech as well as his aides testifying before Congress were using no more than scare tactics to make their point. Either you accept the agreement or expect to go to war. How about simply rejecting the agreement as a bad deal and going back for a new negotiation!?

The president is asking Congress to accept a deal that has little to no verification and does allow the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons in a few short years. And the return of Americans held by Iran was not even addressed. Unless I am really missing something, I cannot understand how President Obama ever hoped for the Congress to accept these terms.

The barrel price of oil has been spiraling down now for many months and in fact hit a many year low last week at below $50 a barrel. Yet, we have seen very little decrease in the price of a gallon of gas this summer. In fact, the barrel price is less than 50 percent of what it was a year and a half ago, but the price of a gallon of gas has only gone down around 25 percent in New York City. This hardly seems fair and deserves an answer.