We should all understand why the Democrat debates are on Saturday night.
The Dems are happy for the Republicans to make all of the primary waves. Let the GOP candidates strong-arm each other with verbal jabs like professional wrestlers. Let the GOP contenders beat each other up so badly that the eventual winner is bloodied and bruised going into the general election race.
Bernie Sanders, left, speaks to Hillary Clinton after a Democratic presidential primary debate Saturday, Dec. 19, 2015, at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) It has been a fine plan, and one that has allowed Hillary Clinton to coast to the Democratic presidential nomination.
Last Saturday - with fewer than 7 million viewers watching and roughly a quarter of the eyeballs as the most-watched GOP debate - the Democrats were at it again.
Heck, even Bernie Sanders, Clinton's faux challenger who could easily pass as the grumpy sitcom grandpa who speaks too loudly and makes everyone a little uncomfortable about what he may say, was upset about the silent shell game the Democrats are playing.
Sanders told reporters after the fact Saturday night that he believes party organizers purposely are trying minimize viewership and exposure.
"I hope a lot of people watched the debate tonight," Sanders told a New Hampshire television station. "I think it was a good debate, but I think there is a desire on the part of the DNC to protect Secretary Clinton."
Well, despite the limited attention, Clinton did her best to make sure we all remember how full of it she is.
Clinton, on the dais with Sanders and some other wingman who has as much chance as you do in this pony show, apparently wanted to get back into the headlines.
She first lobbed the most miscalculated foreign policy assessment since the Indians said, "Hey, we have plenty; let's let the Pilgrims settle here."
"We now finally are where we need to be," Clinton said about the fight against ISIS. Then she claimed ISIS is using GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and his anti-Muslim statements to recruit fighters to the cause.
Say what?
OK, it's understandable why Clinton would want us to believe that the current state of affairs is hunky-dory, especially since in her previous role as secretary of state, she laid the groundwork for our global state of affairs.
Maybe she misspoke, since she also bemoaned the current state affairs of Assad and the war against terror before stating we're right where we need to be.
Jay GreesonEither way, this comedy of errors is becoming the political equivalent of the tree-falling-in-the-forest-with-no-one-there-to-hear-it parable. But that lack of attention should not dull the simple fact that Clinton has trouble with the truth.
Be it Benghazi, her borderline criminal decision to erase a hard drive filled with emails, her family's charitable foundation that somehow 'mistakenly' filled out six years of tax returns or now a ludicrous assessment on our fight on terror, she gets more passes than Jerry Rice.
Her own campaign acknowledged her claim that ISIS is using Donald Trump in recruiting videos is inaccurate.
For Clinton to assert that we are "where we need to be" in the battle against ISIS is laughable.
Heck, even President Barack Obama told NPR on Monday that the fight against terrorism - his fight, mind you - was open to "legitimate criticism" for its shortcomings.
Yes, he fairly pointed out that no one is offering specific plans on the war, as well; but that leaves us in a rare political quandary: What do we make of one political party that has become a reality TV show and the other that is completely happy to be ignored until next November?
One is happy for everyone to see its warts. The other is staying in the shade hoping we all remember the other side's warts.
Alas.
Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is sad about this.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343. His "Right to the Point" columns appear on A2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.