Daily Freeman (Kingston, NY)

Trump declares self winner of debate

- Will Durst Raging Moderate Will Durst is syndicated by Cage Cartoons.

An estimated 84 million Americans tuned into the first presidenti­al debate, but Donald Trump did not seem to be among them. Mentally he had checked out, maybe to seek admission to Dr. Snuffleupa­gus’s clinic to score some surplus Claritin.

A consensus of postdebate polls revealed 54 percent of respondent­s thought Hillary Clinton won, 24 percent considered Trump the winner and the other 22 percent either had no opinion or looked at the questioner­s like they were crazy for even asking.

The month of September witnessed a Trump surge that thrust the real estate mogul into a dead heat, so these numbers indicate half his supporters thought he lost. His own spin doctors were ecstatic he managed to pronounce his own name correctly. And for that they should thank grandpa for changing it from Drumpf. Many people said that whoever watched that debacle and still plans to vote for Donald Trump hates America.

Trump embarked on a post-debate oblivion tour to tell whoever would listen (Fox News) how everybody was telling him he had totally won the debate by a wide margin. Presumably these are the same delusional­s who so often remark on his terrific temperamen­t. Not just a great temperamen­t, the best temperamen­t in the history of presidenti­al politics. Its amazing, his temperamen­t. Ask anybody. Ask Sean Hannity. Trump gets so worked up talking about his tremendous temperamen­t, the only explanatio­n is he’s confused about the definition of the word.

“My temperamen­t is much better than perfect. I have a note from Sean Hannity and Dr. Oz about my incredibly beautiful temperamen­t. Both have seen recent calculatio­ns by my gastroente­rologist that measure my temperamen­t as 98.6 degrees.”

The major debate knock against Clinton is that she was too scripted and resembled an escaped animatron from Disney’s Hall of Presidents whose face had frozen halfway between amazement and condescens­ion. That’s how low we’ve come; accusation­s are flying that someone was too well-prepared.

But that’s more Team Trump sniping, jealous that the former secretary of state was able to string words together into actual sentences with subjects and predicates and points and stuff. You know. In a presidenti­al sort of manner.

Apparently the real estate mogul thought he could earn extra credit based on time of possession, because he interrupte­d and rambled and muttered, finding time to malign Rosie O’Donnell and sputtering something about how the DNC was hacked by some 400-pound guy on a bed. Then the tax-avoiding tycoon complained there was a problem with his microphone. And he’s right. It was turned on.

But don’t despair: There are two more debates to come.

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