Our pal Bernie Goldberg has an as-usual wise analysis of last night’s GOP debate, and the Donald’s cockamamie bravado about his manhood, and why this has become acceptable public discourse. A selection:

Of course this is just the latest unfortunate remark that won’t hurt Trump among his admirers. Never mind that here’s a man running for President of the United States of America saying the kinds of things that a lot of guys won’t even say in a barroom after a few beers. Never mind that he not only said it on national television, but said it during a presidential debate. And never mind, too, that some grownups were watching in with their children. Imagine a 12-year old girl asking her father, “What’s he talking about?”
By now we know all we need to know about Trump’s loyal band of followers – about how angry they are; about how alienated they are; about how dispossessed they are; about how they want to blow up Washington; about how they want a strongman who’ll clean out the stables; about blah blah blah blah blah.
They’re not the ones who leave me baffled. It’s the media people on radio and television who make very good livings being conservative – 100 percent of the time. The conservative radio and TV rulebook says very clearly that they can’t ever take a liberal position on anything. Nuance is not part of their vocabulary or their thought process. You know who these people are.