I watched the Fox News folks moderate the first debate of the Republican field of presidential candidates for president in the 2016 election. I must admit that I did not watch the candidates who were relegated to the non-primetime spot although I had intended to watch them. Unfortunately, I had to run to Walmart and pick up a few things that I knew my wife would soon be pressing me to pick up and when I returned, I had to take my get-in-shape-and-stay-in-shape walk. When I got back home from my walk, the pre-primetime debate that Fox had relegated those who did not make the top 10 to had just ended. But I did watch the primetime big 10 as they went at it.

Actually, and this is probably just me because I do not normally watch Fox to get my news – let alone my political information, I found the debate decorum to be kind of weird. First of all, the seriousness of the atmosphere and moderators seemed more like that of entertainers than that of serious journalist who were probing candidates to help American voters determine which of them might make the best candidate to be the next President of the United States of America. Second, the longer that I watched the more that this debate seemed like some sort of a strange vetting process or cat-and-mouse game to somehow tame Donald Trump and bring him under the Republican Party’s control. And third, I felt that just below the surface of the debate there was a sub-plot – somewhat similar to what the entertainment world might call a catfight, between Megyn Kelly and Mr. Trump (I am not sure that the entertainment world allows for a guy to be a participant in a catfight but if they do, this is what seemed to be occurring between Ms. Kelly and Mr. Trump). It was entertaining.

The problem for me as a political junkie is that I was not looking for entertainment but for some real political facts from each of these candidates about how they view moving America forward in a very dangerous environment. An environment where we are not only bombarded by domestic problems but where our foreign policy is extremely important because of the possibility of a nuclear Iran and ISIS and their expanding ability to use the Internet to bring their deadly war to America.

Then after the debate while I was surfing the various cable news channels to hear what various commentators and pundits were saying about it, I flipped to Megyn Kelly’s show and found Charles Krauthammer telling Ms. Kelly what a great job she and her coworkers had done in how they handled the debate. He talked about how sharp, precise and focused their questions were and how they had managed the time and kept the candidates from speaking beyond their allotted amount of time. In essence, he said that they were perfect. Well now I know that there was at least one person who felt differently and just the opposite of me.

The bottom line is that a lot of American voters likely watched these debates and began to form an opinion on who they think would either be the best nominee for the Republican Party and hopefully the next President of the United States of America or, if you are a Democrat, who will be the likely Republican nominee and likely be the most formidable candidate to face the Democratic nominee and how to best go about defeating that person.

I will continue to follow the Republican primary debates but, personally, I hope that the remainder of those that are hosted by Fox will be more substantive. I hope that they will be focused more on the issues that are currently in the forefront in America. For instance, in the debate that I watched there was only one question on policing and no questions about the Voting Rights Act in particular or Civil Rights – other than the NSA’s questionable information gathering, in general. For the record, the question about policing was a softball question and the moderator did not press for any additional detail from the respondent.

Should you compare my opinion of the debate to those of Mr. Krauthammer you will obviously find that we are on completely different ends of the spectrum when it comes to the debate and the value of its content. Despite our difference of opinion, it is apparent that both of us watched the debate. I have said before and will continue to emphasize that all Americans, especially those of voting age, should follow politics and familiarize themselves with the voting record of our politicians so that we will be informed voters. It matters not whether we are Democrat, Republican or Independent or whether or not – in the case of this 2016 presidential election, we agree on who should be our next president.

What matters is that we exercise our right to vote. Although I constantly fret about how people of color are being treated by those who would deny us the right to vote, whether it is out of fear or for some other reason, I know that I must be willing to listen to the voice of those people. If we are not willing to listen, there can be no discourse. And if there is no discourse, we cannot expose the true reasons for our differences of opinion, mitigate them, and resolve our problems; kind of like me and Charles Krauthammer. What’s wrong with that guy? We need to talk.

Eulus Dennis