The Commanders-in-Chief Forum held on the Battleship Intrepid permanently lodged in New York Harbor was a huge disappointment. Each of the presidential candidates was interviewed NBC’s Matt Lauer for half an hour with a few questions offered from the strictly military audience. It was a predictable non-debate. Neither candidate offered any new information and Lauer did not follow up evasive answers with incisive followup queries.
Trump’s claim that “(he) knows more about Isis than the generals do" was fatuously reinforced when he pulled a paper out of his jacket: it was the list of eighty-four generals who support him. It is hard to envision the truth of Trump’s claim since he has been busy campaigning, impugning the “Obama Clinton” administration, and offending various voting constituencies. Several times on the campaign trail he has said he would “wipe out Isis in two weeks, believe me” but refuses to reveal his plan. He does not want to tell the enemy what he is planning to so.
All told the forum was bland and hardly worth watching.
Louis Borgenicht
Salt Lake City