Hillary, Donald, the first debate, and the Trump Noise Machine

If you can't beat them with logic or facts, try to drown then out with noise.

 I predictthat's what Trump will try during the first Presidential Debate.

Here’s a prediction:

Since Donald Trump doesn’t have the smarts, the knowledge, or the temperament to debate Hillary effectively, he’ll try to make up for his lack of substance and skill by doing his best to drown out Hillary with an abundance of noise.

His spokes-puppets do it all the time. In CNN and other network news interviews, they constantly interrupt people with different points-of-view, or talk over them, trying to shout down what they can’t beat with facts or logic. (A perfect cross-talker is Trump spokesperson Kelly Ann Conway.)

The American people deserve better. They deserve to hear the facts and points-of-view of each of the opponents so that we can make up our minds.

Which means that it comes down to the moderator (Lester Holt at the first debate) to hold both speakers in check — to make sure that they speak only their allotted length of time, and that they do not interrupt the other speaker.

Ideally, the moderator ought to be given a remote switch which would turn off the microphone of either debater if he or she runs over a time  limit, or interrupts the other.

That failing, we need a moderator who’s tough as nails, who will interrupt the interruptor and tell him or her in plain language that this kind of behavior is worthy of an unruly kindergarten child, not a presidential candidate.

The question is, is each of the four moderators (After Holt there’s Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper, and Chris Wallace — or will they all act like Matt Lauer and compete for the World’s Most Incompetent Journalist Award?

Tune in Monday night. Pop up a couple of bags of popcorn first. But tune in. And prepare for teeth-jarring rounds of Trump trying to shot down Hillary.