CNBC, a financial news network characterized by moving stock symbols, Wall Street-centric arrogance, and commentators who've never missed a meal, will host the next Republican presidential candidates debate on October 28.
     Donald Trump and Ben Carson had threatened to not participate, co-writing a letter with an ultimatum to CNBC programmers: Allow opening and closing statements by the candidates, and limit the debate's time to no more than two hours, including commercials.  Considering the still large number of Republican candidates, their opening and closing statements would cut the debate's meaty portion by maybe fifteen minutes, leaving about ninety minutes of debate time, excluding the commercials that make the American political process possible.
     I do the vague math because it explains something important about Donald Trump.  He's a sound bite man, and so is the quieter Carson, who said in a recent interview that a Muslim should never be president.  A political sound bite works best when it seems thoughtless, a spontaneous burp in the direction of ears willing to hear what they want to hear.  Trump, we should realize by now, operates best when the liquid word shit spraying from his mouth isn't diapered by controlling factors, like ungovernable televised time slots.  Allowing a debate of three hours, as Trump learned from the recent CNN one, makes limp the strutting attitude he needs to maintain as prime cock of Republican aspirations in 2015, if not 2016.
     He complained of having to stand for three hours during the CNN debate.  I find it notable that the less in-shape Chris Christie didn't whine about having to do the same thing.  Any worker whose job requires standing for three hours or more should not vote for Donald Trump since he obviously can't comprehend how insensitive he is towards the working class.  During the Kennedy administration, it was unknown to the public that their president had severe chronic back pain stemming from his naval service in World War Two, when he, unlike Trump, put his life on the line.  Kennedy did not complain to journalists about his physical problems.  Neither did Franklin Roosevelt.  Do we want a president who can't handle standing for three hours?
     CNBC decision-makers received Trump and Carson's letter and a few days later they announced the debate would be two hours with commercials, the candidates each getting a thirty second closing statement and at the beginning the chance to answer a single question put to all.  Ratings concerns, of course, convinced the people at CNBC that a debate without the two Republican (poll-decided) frontrunners would garner several million less viewers.
     Trump is right when he boasts about viewers tuning in to see him debate (if debating means using methods like crowd-baiting).  CNBC will probably have a ratings orgasm on October 28.  NBC Universal, so righteous when denouncing Trump for his anti-Mexican slurs last summer, has no problem giving him a platform on one of their networks, a platform he gained while dictating the conditions of the upcoming debate.
     An honorable executive, if one were to exist at CNBC, would've said, "Fuck you, Mr. Trump.  Be in the debate, or not.  We know your threat involves giving up free publicity, something you're not known for.  It's unbelievable that you wouldn't show up."
     Trump runs the show, in the news media and politically, because the networks feed him to feed themselves.
     I remember when the final episode of M*A*S*H was the highest rated TV show ever.  I watched it, I liked it.  Do those ratings from 1983 matter now, compared to the quality of the show itself?  Ratings just mean people look at something on television.  Coverage of the 9/11 attacks must've been among the highest-rated ever (though not spoken about), dwarfing even Trump's performance at the Fox News debate when he bothered again to bring up his enmity towards Rosie O'Donnell, proof of his worthiness as president, if pettiness is one of a leader's traditional traits.
   
                                                                            Vic Neptune