JD Vance Is Smoother — but No Better — Than Donald Trump

I’m ashamed of myself.

During stretches of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, I found myself admiring — sort of — JD Vance. I awarded him points for unflappability, wishing Tim Walz could mimic that composure and tap a well of confidence as deep. I envied his crispness, willing Walz to state his case as clearly and cleanly.

Vance’s answers seemed to have commas, semicolons and colons in all the right places, while Walz’s herky-jerky statements were linked (or not) by ellipses. The paper-grading professor in me gave Vance a high mark, Walz a barely passing one.

But the 2024 election isn’t an essay contest. Nor is it a beauty pageant, with the debates functioning as the interview segment. It’s a morality play. It’s about fundamental values. And Vance’s are rotten, no matter how much oratorical perfume he sprays on them, no matter how eloquently he diverts you from the stench.

The hell of the debate matched the hell of this presidential campaign, in which there’s a temptation — a pull — to evaluate performance, parse communication or dissect policy, employing criteria that we attentive citizens have used across the decades. But such assessments are utterly beside the point. The race for president pits a Democratic ticket with many shortcomings against a Republican ticket with no scruples whatsoever, decency against indecency, respect for the democratic process against unfettered ambition, and psychological stability (Kamala Harris) against a spectacular lack thereof (you know who).

In that context, it’s pointless, even reckless, to dwell on Walz’s visible nervousness during the debate or his many missed opportunities.

Yes, he failed to nail Vance appropriately and effectively for spreading the dangerous calumny — or is it cookery? — that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating other people’s pets. Yes, that suggested a discouraging limit to Walz’s political skills.