Debate

Finding fault takes finesse. Oh, anybody can complain. We are a nation of complainers, carping at everything from breakfast vittles to late-night TV. We complain about our politicians, our prognosticators and our pop stars. But these complaints run like water down a windowpane in the same old channels to the same wet destination. Finding fault — finding new faults in a familiar subject — is much harder. It takes talent. It takes a critic. I am well aware that these days a lot of Americans complain that we are too divided. The nation bristles with parti pris. We revile the exponents of political views opposed to our own. We sneer at their provincialism, their pissant pettiness and their lack of civility, for which they should rightly be crushed.

In an opinion column for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman proposes that Joe Biden debate Donald Trump only if the President meets two conditions. Trump must release his tax returns and agree to a non-partisan panel of fact-checkers. The fact-checkers, he says, should point out the debaters’ errors in real time and conclude the event by summarizing their findings. Among really bad ideas, this one is a prize-winner. Let us count the reasons why. Trump’s failure to release his tax returns is a legitimate issue to debate, not a precondition for one. Biden is free to raise it on the campaign trail and debate stage, just as Hillary Clinton did. Remember, the voters have already dealt with this issue once.