September 27, 2026

SEPTEMBER 26, 1960: THE NIXON-KENNEDY DEBATE:

September 26, 1960, is an interesting date in American history. Sixty-six years ago, as of the date I write this, was the first televised presidential debate in the United States, wherein the Republican candidate, Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon, squared off against the Democrat, an upstart Senator from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Opinions about the debate, then and now, are varied, as are opinions about every presidential debate before and since, but since this was the first one where the candidates appeared on screen in American homes, things were a little different. Two years ago, the Conversation’s W. Joseph Campbell examined this debate and compared it to the 2024 Trump/Biden debate, and their report is still worth reading.

The run-up to the Joe Biden-Donald Trump debate at the end of June 2024 has brought reminders about the first-ever televised presidential debate – and how Vice President Richard Nixon’s sweaty, haggard appearance that autumn night in 1960 opened a pathway to the White House for the tanned and telegenic Sen. John F. Kennedy.

That, at least, is conventional wisdom about the Kennedy-Nixon debate of Sept. 26, 1960: Image prevailed, rewarding Kennedy and punishing Nixon.

“Kennedy went on to narrowly win the election that most say he never would have had a shot at without that first debate,” Time magazine declared in 2016, in recounting the greatest missteps in political debates. “It seems Nixon’s fatal flub was in failing to recognize the power of the visual image.”

Or as Max Frankel, then the executive editor of The New York Times, wrote sardonically several months after Nixon’s death in 1994, “Nixon lost a TV debate, and the Presidency, to John F. Kennedy in 1960 because of a sweaty upper lip.”

Or to put it another way, Kennedy won thanks to a lot of help from Don Hewitt of CBS News, who was supported him: “Hewitt convinced JFK to wear pancake make-up to soften the harsh glare of the studio klieg lights. During the broadcast, Hewitt instructed the camera operators to frame Kennedy in profile with a wide angle. For Nixon, Hewitt ordered straight-on extreme close-ups — the equivalent of a mug shot. Don Hewitt, by the way, perfected his craft as founder and producer of CBS’ 60 Minutes. The ‘villain’ of each 60 Minutes segment has always gotten the Nixonian treatment. (Welcome to the world of objective television journalism.)”

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Has Nikole Hannah-Jones just written a new version of The Jungle?

[C]ongratulations, Nikole Hannah-Jones.

You’re a regular Nick Shirley, exposing the outrageous fraud of public school education in New York City, even as you think you are promoting DEI or rage over racism or something.

Or more specifically, you are becoming the new Upton Sinclair.

Sinclair, recall, was a progressive-era muckraker who wrote ‘The Jungle’ in 1906, with the express aim of converting America to socialism.

His book described the filthy meat-packing plants of Chicago and the terrible labor conditions experienced by America’s Lithuanian and other immigrant workers in a wrenching, emotionally engaging book that became a massive bestseller.

But much to his surprise, he didn’t convert anyone to socialism.

People read about those filthy meat-packing plants where chemicals and spoilage were present, and absolutely shuddered at the thought that they were eating from them.

That prompted major legislation to reform food sanitation practices, including the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug Act by Congress.

Sinclair never quite knew what hit him, famously saying:

I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.

That’s what Hannah-Jones just did: she shined a spotlight on the rotten meat of New York City’s educational ‘product,’ and like Sinclair, drew huge attention.

Exit quote: “How ironic that it comes from her when all she wanted to do was preach DEI.”

Posted at 1:43 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE KINDER AND GENTLER WORLD BEFORE EUROPEAN COLONIALISM: 700-year-old skull in China is first evidence of punitive nose amputation. “Researchers say a roughly 700-year-old skull from China could mark the first archaeological case anywhere of nose amputation used as punishment, and signs on the bones suggest the woman lived through it. If that interpretation is correct, the find would offer physical confirmation of a harsh penalty long described in ancient Chinese writings but not previously identified in human remains.”

Posted at 1:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

ROGER KIMBALL: Varieties of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

There are two things to register about TDS. The first is how virulent it is. The second is how it tends to worsen, not attenuate, with the passage of time. Farr’s Law does not seem to be operative in the career of this virus. During Trump’s first term, we saw things we had never seen in this country before. The parade of women in pink “pussy hats” was just a local variation on the sort of thing that might have plagued George W. Bush. But as Trump’s first term unfolded, the insanity increased. There was the whole “Russia Collusion Hoax,” for example, a caper hatched in the White House in the final days of Barack Obama’s second term. It was meant to delegitimize and ultimately end the Trump administration, and it very nearly did.

Then there came the systematic censorship and deplatforming of the president of the United States. He was booted off various social media platforms—what were then Twitter, Facebook, etc.—and essentially denied an effective means of communicating with his supporters. Pause for a moment to consider how bizarre it was that the president of the United States was censored and denied a place in the national conversation.

It gets worse. “Grok: Is it true that Trump was debanked?” “Yes—in 2021, after January 6, several large banks closed accounts tied to Donald Trump and Trump businesses.”

Beginning in 2028, the rehabilitation of Trump’s reputation will begin in the legacy media, softening him as a wise elder statesman, when a new Hitler emerges — a man far worse than the current Hitler — and campaigns to succeed him.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Cambridge University abandons full investigation into hiring of plagiarist professor Jason Arday. 

Cambridge University will no longer fully investigate its hiring of Professor Jason Arday. The university had previously said it would investigate the circumstances surrounding the professor’s appointment and his time at Cambridge.

Arday was found dead by apparent suicide last month after facing public scrutiny for allegations concerning plagiarism in portions of his doctoral thesis and other work. Cambridge announced its review would instead look into whether the university had adequately supported Arday amid allegations of plagiarism.

The move is a departure from a promise made by the school’s Vice-Chancellor, Deborah Prentice, who said there would be a “thorough and transparent” investigation into the hiring of Arday. It is now unclear if Cambridge will ever publicly address the vetting process used for Arday to obtain his senior teaching job.

They won’t, or at least not until much more pressure is applied. And thus, nothing will change. Professor Kingsfield and even Dean Wormer left the academy a long time ago:

 

 

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

HOARDERS AND WRECKERS DESCEND UPON THE LAST DITCH: Paranoid owner of woke Mass. lesbian bar puts big restrictions on mask-free Saturday over ‘infiltrator’ fear.

The first mask-free Saturday since a Massachusetts lesbian bar went viral for descending into a catty culture war was nearly canceled after its last remaining owner claimed the venue was being “infiltrated.”

Greenfield’s Last Ditch Bar caused an uproar when it broke the news last month to its “immunocompromised disabled divas” it was lifting its mandatory mask policy for just one night a week in a bid to boost business — six full years after the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than one dozen patrons gathered at the door shortly after 7 p.m. for a “goth night” with underground DJs “Hannibal Directive” and “Puppy Synthesis” were turned away and told to come back at 10 p.m. because staff was holding a last-minute emergency meeting. Most hadn’t gotten the memo about theme.

When they returned, the by now nearly 100 people rushing to get in were promptly informed by the financially struggling establishment that because of unspecified “safety breaches,” the mask-free dance night they’d been eagerly anticipating for the past three hours was now a private event — and that if they couldn’t name someone they knew inside, they were being 86’d.

Patrons also had to hand over their ID to staff as a supposed “security measure,” and could only pick it up on the way out.

Despite the outcry about the decision to go mask-free one night a week by those who called it a “mass disabling event” and a “eugenicist” attack, on Saturday fewer than a dozen patrons were masked.

“It just feels off-putting,” said Pete, 43, who lives in nearby Northampton, the city that’s been labeled “Lesbianville, USA,” of wearing a mask.

“I thought it would be more inclusive for me to go on Saturdays,” Patricia Sonaike, 24, a Houston, Texas, native who is a junior at UMass Amherst studying biology and member of the LGBTQ+ community, told The Post.

“In my humblest of opinions, the moral grandstanding that is happening right now is like how a lot of these queer and BIPOC spaces won’t last.”

The crowd danced to techno pop music on the black and white checkered dance floor that had a stripper pole in the middle, as anime cartoons played on a projector screen and neon lights flashed.

Yesterday, I described the Last Ditch as a prewritten Saturday Night Live sketch that the show wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot stripper pole. But a story this bonkers deserves a much bigger screen, or at the very least a TV series all its own: Viral Lesbian Bar Article From Boston Globe Is Piquing Hollywood’s Interest.

Of course it’s peaking Hollywood’s interest:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

ALSO, SHE LOOKS LIKE SHE’S HAVING FUN. MOST FAMOUS WOMEN TODAY SEEM LIKE JOYLESS SCOLDS.

Posted at 11:19 am by Glenn Reynolds

A REMINDER OF WHAT IS AT STAKE IN NOVEMBER:

 

Posted at 10:45 am by Ed Driscoll

OUT ON A LIMB: AOC’s team admitted it: The Green New Deal was never about saving the planet.

The Green New Deal is all about power and control.

Shortly after Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal, her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, let the cat out of the bag.

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti admitted to reporters. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a ‘how do you change the entire economy’ thing.”

With most Americans no longer worried about a climate change apocalypse, I suspect the left will simply invent another scaremongering campaign to justify the Green New Deal.

Whatever they come up with, Americans should remain skeptical because the Green New Deal is just a mechanism for the far Left to exert unprecedented command and control.

As summer wound down, the left seamlessly transferred the “we only have five/ten/12 years to save the planet” rhetoric of radical environmentalism to AI doomsday rhetoric:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll