My SpyTalk colleague Jonathan Broder and I picked the Hawk ‘n’ Dove, a venerable saloon on Capitol Hill, to watch last night’s presidential debate. And not just for its puckish, Vietnam War-era name, which the establishment claims “reflects an older Washington that believed in politics, not just politicking.”
As expected, the place was crammed with 30-something congressional staffers and lobbyists, the men uniformly decked out in navy blue blazers, the women in lightweight suits and summer dresses. At 8:59 pm, the TVs over the bar were all switched to CNN and the crowd hushed. A few minutes in, a gasp swept the crowd as Biden made his first troubling mental fumble, evidently forgetting what he was talking about. More gaffes would follow. As the debate wore on, with Trump hammering the gape-mouthed president with barrage after barrage of outright lies and exaggerations, the crowd’s attention turned elsewhere. A cocktail party din soon eclipsed whatever was being shown or said on TV. Well before the spectacle’s end, hardly anyone was paying attention. People were leaving early.
Last week I had predicted that the performance and role of our spy agencies “could be a factor” in the debate, noting that opinion polls had shown widespread discomfort over electronic surveillance and Americans’ declining trust in U.S. intelligence agencies. My basis for that was Trump’s standard stump speech, which usually included attacks on the Obama administration’s Justice Department, FBI and CIA, with false accusations that they had “spied” on him. He’d also repeatedly denounced the evidence-free statement of over 50 former intelligence officials in 2020 that the publication of Hunter Biden’s laptop contents had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information campaign.” His tirades about a “deep state” controlling America, which had found a receptive audience in both leftwing and rightwing circles for years, were also Trump’s standard fare.
For sure, the once and maybe future president bellowed about the Biden laptop and “Russia, Russia, Russia” last night. He also pilloried Biden on the swift collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and chaotic withdrawal from Kabul’s airport. (Biden missed a chance to counter that Trump had actually invited the Taliban to Camp David after his own plan set the stage for the Afghan disaster.) In any event, the debate devolved into mutual, childish name-calling that overshadowed the issues.
All in all, Biden’s evident feebleness, accented by split-screen shots showing his mouth agape like a nursing home patient, stole the show. Viewers were left to decide for themselves whether the nation would be safer under a crackpot, criminal Trump or a frail, aged Biden. If debates are—and should be—about the future rather than the past, both men left the crowd at the Hawk ‘n’ Dove tuned out, and seriously wanting.
SpyTalk is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.