Opinion | The debate commission grabbed for too much power. Its time is up. – The Washington Post

Outrage was fast to follow, but not as fast as Trump, who announced immediately that no way was he going to pretend either that a format he hadn t agreed to was the format that would be used, or, more importantly by far, that a group of aging grandees of no authority in law or regulation, much less the Constitution, was going to tell the head of state and government when to show up for what event.

The commission was last seen falling back in disarray, and the campaigns were negotiating, again as was intended, between themselves. Maybe the dates would be moved? I suggest the president name a stage and a date, name his own moderator and invite Biden to join him along with a moderator of the Democratic nominee s choosing. The moderators could alternate questions and leave the men who would be president to talk to each other for 10 minutes at a time. Who knows what would happen? A debate might break out.

But know that the commission is done. Finished. It went too far. It grabbed for too much. It exposed itself as not only far from it s original, modest, representational purpose, as well as far from anything resembling nonpartisan, but also far from the people who run this country: its citizens, organized on the largest scale, into two parties that will now take back their authority and quickly.

via archive.fo