Great Minds…

I've received about thirty messages about this so forgive me if I don't acknowledge all of you, but the other day on this blog, I said that if it ever came to Donald Trump debating Pete Buttigieg, I imagined this…

…the two men are debating and Donald makes some crack about his opponent not being a real man or a moral man or someone whose lifestyle God would approves of. And when it's Mayor Pete's turn to talk, assuming Trump lets him have one, he says, "I know you don't understand this, Mr. President, but I am devoted to my mate in every way. For instance, if he were to take ill, I would be at his side to take care of him instead of…oh, say, going out and banging a porn star!"

As ~30 of you wrote to tell me, Mayor Pete used a version of that line in a town hall meeting yesterday

Buttigieg — who came out as gay in 2015 and married his husband, Chasten, in 2018 — was asked during his CNN town hall about conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh telling his listeners that American voters are "still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president." Trump, who initially responded to the comments by saying he was not uncomfortable with a gay president, told Limbaugh to "never apologize" for his comments about Buttigieg, the radio host said Tuesday.

"The idea of the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Donald Trump lecturing anybody on family values," Buttigieg said before pausing for applause. Then the Democratic candidate went after the President directly: "I mean, I'm sorry but one thing about my marriage is it's never involved me having to send hush money to a porn star after cheating on my spouse, with him or her."

He added: "So, if they want to debate family values, let's debate family values, I'm ready."

I guess if you're a politician trying to be more civilized than the opposition, you say "send hush money to a porn star" instead of "banging a porn star" but it's the same line. And yes, I'm sure Buttigieg got it directly from this blog because he surely has nothing else to do these days other than surf the 'net looking for quips and rejoinders, and no one else could have possibly thought of that line, and yes, I'm being sarcastic.

I still haven't decided which candidate I'm going to vote for on this ballot to my left which I need to mark and send back. But I was impressed with Mayor Pete's Town Hall performance. He's delivering exactly what is desired by people who say they yearn for the days of pre-Trump civility. I did not find myself seriously disagreeing with anything he said…but judge for yourself. The section where the above lines were spoken starts with a question at 24:40 and this link should take you right to it or you can watch the whole thing (it's 47 minutes) below…