The Winner of Last Night's Debate

 As I suspected it would be, last night's debate was a farrago of bad moderation, a failure to adhere to the rules, and a complete steamrolling of the questions asked to allow for the delivery of prepared monologues.  Pence was a boorish liar, or a lying boor- constantly going over time and interrupting Kamala Harris.  For her part, Kamala Harris was calm, and called out Pence for his prickery, but I can't help but feel that she missed several opportunities to eviscerate the mendacious mansplainer.

There was a clear winner of the debate, though, a silent critic which made clear what Pence was full of: 

  

What's the difference between Mike Pence and a fly? One is a disgusting disease vector that flies around, spreading pathogens, the other one is a fly. 

The one time I yelled at my computer screen during the debate was during Kamala Harris' response to Pence's statement that she and Joe Biden would use taxpayer dollars to fund Planned Parenthood: 

 

While Harris' response was a decent boilerplate answer, she could have eviscerated Pence, tying his stance on reproductive health with his failure, as Pandemic Czar, to contain the COVID-19 disaster. While Pence was governor of Indiana, that state experienced a full blown AIDS epidemic in rural counties- Pence was reluctant to initiate a clean-needle exchange program during an opiate abuse crisis, delaying a response to the outbreak. Furthermore, his defunding of Planned Parenthood in Indiana caused the closure of the only STD testing clinic, which exacerbated the response. 

The American people simply cannot trust a man whose ignorance, religious fundamentalism, and callous treatment of disadvantaged people led to a regional epidemic to run a pandemic response. There, that's bringing Pence's ignorant take on women's reproductive health directly to our current crisis... this is why I was screaming at the TV. Yeah, opportunities lost... I guess Senator Harris is too busy to obsess over minute historical details, but Indiana Boy Pete Buttigieg should have driven this information into her during debate prep. 

Anyway, back to the real winner of the debate, here's a nice theme song for Pence's public appearances: 

 

Yeah, he'll 'shake you down to say please as you accept your next dose of disease' pretty much sums it up.