Attacks at Commander in Chief Forum--Was Clinton Held to a Higher Standard?

A ground rule for the Commander in Chief Forum, hosted by NBC on Sept. 8, 2016, was that the candidates should not use the forum as an opportunity to attack the opponent. Both were reminded of this at the beginning of their respective half hour interviews.

It’s often said that Hillary Clinton is held to a higher standard for behavior and honesty than her opponent. An analysis by your News Companion of the candidates' words at the forum reveals the following:

Clinton criticized Trump on three occasions—143 words out of a total of 2744. Trump agreed to keep attacks to a minimum, “absolutely”, then went negative 18 times--879 words out of a total of 3226. Clinton went negative 5% of the time. Trump went negative 27% of the time.

By word count, Trump broke the rule five times more often than Clinton, and yet only Clinton was called out for breaking the rule, when Lauer interrupted her, saying, “And we tried to have an agreement…”

Other Troubling Aspects of the Forum

This was the first time the two candidates appeared on the same stage on the same night, first one, then the other, with their contrasting styles very much in evidence. Clinton gave long, detailed answers, while Donald Trump's responses were clipped.

• The Emails: Hillary Clinton's half hour began with an extended grilling about her emails and whether they suggest she is unfit for the presidency. This is part of a long, judo-like tradition of using Clinton's strength's against her. For anyone who believes public servants should be working hard for us, the impressive number of emails, in the tens of thousands, could be taken as evidence of her work ethic and extensive experience with foreign affairs. Instead, by alleging wrongdoing, her opponents make us think not of hard work and deep commitment to country, but of some vast impropriety. Though not mentioned at the forum, Colin Powell had also used a private email account, because the State Department's email system was slow and cumbersome. 
• Trump's Secret Plan: Trump, when asked repeatedly about how he planned to solve this or that problem, gave few or no specifics, quickly veering instead into attacks on Obama and Clinton. Asked how he would defeat Isis, he claimed to have a plan, but then said he'd ask generals for a plan. The interviewer pointed out that Trump had earlier claimed he knew more than the generals about Isis. That inconsistency led to more attacks on Clinton and Obama. In other words, we have a candidate more comfortable with attacking his opponent than offering coherent proposals. 
• Dictatorial Tendencies?: Trump suggested that, given our huge investment in money and lives in Iraq--he said $3 trillion--that we should have taken all of their oil. "To the victor belong the spoils," he said. That way, Isis would not have had oil to fund their terrorism. Speaking positively of Putin, who has invaded and claimed other countries, Trump noted Putin's high popularity rating and said, "the man has very strong control over a country." Trump portrayed our country as currently weak and embarrassed by other nations. We have a "depleted military" and "We’re losing our jobs like we’re a bunch of babies." Obama is poorly treated by other countries, e.g. when the Chinese failed to provide stairs for him to walk down from his plane. In his convention speech, Trump had claimed that "our citizens ... have lived through one international humiliation after another". The world's most notorious dictator, prior to World War II, portrayed his country as "defenseless", and a victim of "the most humiliating treatment ever meted out to a great nation." Similarity in speech does not necessarily equal similarity in intent (a survey of language used by other dictators would be instructive), and yet, when Trump portrays our country as humiliated by foreign powers, and praises a foreign strongman, and speaks of extracting foreign oil as "spoils", what does he mean when he says he'll make our country great again?
• No Mention of Climate Change: Our military leaders see climate change increasingly as a destabilizing influence in the world, and therefore a security threat. Climate change likely played a role in the extended drought that contributed to destabilization of Syria. Trump's denial of climate change raises questions about his ability to identify threats, and yet the subject was not raised.

Below are the candidates’ words (all questions removed), with attacks in red. For each candidate, the words in attack sentences in red were counted and compared to the candidate's total verbal output.

A Borderline Solution for the Border: Build That Retirement Community!

I have a dream. Two dreams actually. The first is that Donald Trump not become president, in part because being president requires having an attention span, but also because his dream of a secure border with Mexico can best be realized if he remains in the private sector.

Building the wall is important to him, at least for the energy the slogan generates at his rallies, but is it important to us? You can watch this PBS News Hour report to learn that "illegal immigration from Mexico is at an historic low". 21,000 agents patrol the border, aided by ground sensors and cameras, with 650 miles of wall strategically erected along the 2000 mile border.

But even if a politician is trying to scare us with a diminishing problem in order to avoid grappling with steadily growing problems like climate change, we could always do better with border security, and that's why my dream is that Trump in his post-election defeat pulls himself together and takes on the biggest, best, most fabulous real estate project of his career. Rather than a wall, which will only drain more public treasure while drug smugglers tunnel underneath it, private citizen Trump should buy the Mexican border, then build a linear retirement home that will run its full 2000 mile length. Don't worry about logistics. He'll make it work. That the building's extraordinary length is expressed horizontally rather than vertically may not sit well, but horizontal will become the new vertical as the population ages and heat exhaustion on a warming planet lays us low.

The building will have all the best accommodations for all the best people who have lived all the best years of their lives and now desperately need all the best care from all the best Mexican workers willing to deal with their ever expanding debilities. Our increasing number of seniors will enter from the U.S. side, while Mexico's increasing number of care givers will enter and leave each day on the Mexican side. Some will view the separate entrances as a nod to an era when America was supposedly greater than it is today. We're talking nothing less than a ribbon of prosperity and employment along the border so great that no one will ever want to cross the border again.

There's only one man for this job, and it will require his full inattention.