My man Fred Kaplan lists some of the ridiculous things said in last night's G.O.P. debate about U.S. foreign policy. There were an amazing number of them given that you-know-who wasn't on the premises.
Much is being written about the way Mr. Trump's success so far has changed the nature of political campaigns. The biggest impact I see is that people running for public office used to be at least a little afraid of saying something that was so untrue and ridiculous that it would change their public profile in an undoable way…like Al Gore getting typed as a liar for saying he'd created the Internet, which of course was not what he said or meant. Nowadays though, they all seem to think nothing like that can hurt them; that they're free to say whatever seems to work well in the speech or debate line today, and they aren't harmed if it's total Bandini. It's like the country has resigned itself to the concept that even the person they'll choose to support and cheer on is going to have to tell a lot of lies to get the job.