My latest: the Vice-Presidential debate waszzzzz…

What’s happening in Israel is way, way more important. But there was a Vice-Presidential debate last night, and I watched it. In between checking for updates from the Middle East, here are my five impressions of the debate.

1. The beard. Did you know that less than 5 per cent of politicians, most particularly in the United States of America, have any kind of facial hair? Mustaches, beards, those weird soul-patch things that should be banned: in American politics, facial hair projects just aren’t done. Apologies to Abe Lincoln, but U.S. voters strongly prefer the clean and clean-shaven look. So, thus my reaction to the Republican politician named J.D. Vance (or whatever his name really is): it’s visually off-putting. The Kinsellian™ rule is to watch political debates with the sound off. Every time I did, Vance reminded me of the leader of a smallish drug cartel in an old Miami Vice episode. It might not be a big deal to you, but it is to 95 per cent of Americans. And me.

2. HOAG. So, keep the sound off. Just look at the screen. Which guy looks like the car salesman who sold you a lemon? And which one looks like the guy who pulled over to give you and your lemon a boost, when you’re stuck on the side of a rural back road? Exactly. It’s the HOAG: you know, hell of a guy. Tim Walz looks and sounds like someone you could have a beer with. JD Vance looks and sounds like someone who applies Purell right after shaking hands with you.

3. It was boring. As much as political hacks and weirdos like me deplore it, nobody really watches political debates from to gavel anymore. They just don’t. I haven’t seen any ratings about last night, but I suspect that most people changed the channel at the first commercial break. It was just so, so boring. So, most voters’ exposure to it will be in clips: they’ll watch the coverage of the debate, but not the debate itself. And, so, there was one clip that stood out above all the rest: at the end, when Walz repeatedly asked Vance if Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election, and Vance repeatedly refused to answer. Coming from the guy who, as Vice President, is constitutionally required to certify the electoral college results, that’s a big deal.

4. Walz look like a Minnesota deer in the headlights in the first five minutes. And then, when he got the opportunity to talk about policy or his beloved home state, he loosened up and he did very well. In fact, if you were a policy freak, that debate was the best thing that has happened to you all year, pretty much. Walz gave me the impression that he knew and understood public policy. Vance gave me the impression that he was prepared to say anything – no matter how egregiously false, no matter how rip-roaringly dishonest – to cover up the policy dementia of his running mate

5. There wasn’t a fight. In fact, after the debate was over everybody – spouses included – shook hands with everybody. I’m willing to bet that they went off the set and shook hands with every member of the crew and then some bewildered people on the sidewalk outside the CBS studios. Some punch-drunk pundits are complaining about that this morning, but they should be ashamed of themselves. For a decade, Donald Trump and his ilk have denuded our politics of decency and civility. It was nice, for a change, to see two political candidates have a debate that was both decent and civil.

Now, Conservatives flooded my X feed, of course, because they were delighted that there was finally an American politician at the national level who was not a racist, sexist monkey with a machine gun.

But the fact is, and history will record, a monkey with a machine gun is the Republican presidential candidate.

And J.D. Vance wanted to be his running mate.