*Editor’s Note: Stories For Sunday is thankful to have a guest post from Joe Valentine. He put this poem together as his civic contribution to this great country.
Deletion poems don’t usually make a lot of sense. Presidential elections usually make a little bit of sense. And yet this deletion poem from the third presidential debate is a pretty solid encapsulation of the 2016 election. Source material found here.
Chris Wallace: Good evening from Las Vegas.
I’m Chris Wallace of Cheers. No noise
except Trump.
Secretary Clinton, Mr. Trump,
let’s get it on. First of all,
what’s your view on words?
Clinton: I talk. I stand up and basically say,
I would be great as President.
Wallace: Mr. Trump, same question.
Trump: First of all, it’s great to be so, so
very inappropriate
toward a tremendous number of people.
Many, many millions of people.
I am bent.
Wallace: We now have ten minutes
for an open discussion on
the arms of judge Antonin Scalia.
Clinton: The gun show. I respect the arms.
Trump: The toughest. Probably you could say
by far the toughest.
Tremendous. Very strong.
Wallace: Well, let’s pick on Mr. Trump. You’re pro-life.
Trump: I am pro-life.
Clinton: I strongly support regulations on
women that block them from Donald.
Wallace: Mr. Trump, your reaction.
Trump: Well I think If you go with what Hillary is saying,
you can say that that is okay and
Hillary can say that that is okay, but because
based on what she is saying and based
on where she’s going and
where she’s been, that’s not acceptable.
Clinton: Scare rhetoric.
Wallace: All right. Let’s move on.
The question is why are you right
and your opponent wrong?
Trump: Well first of all, she is just pouring
the blood of the youth.
Clinton: I rip apart children.
I want to see Donald rip apart any person.
Trump: We are a country of laws.
Clinton: There are some limited
places where that was appropriate.
Trump: Big league. Bigly.
Wallace: Secretary Clinton, you gave a
Brazilian for which you
were paid $225,000.
Is that your dream?
Clinton: That is private.
Wallace: Try to keep it quiet.
Trump: Now we can talk about Putin.
He said nice things about me.
He has tremendous
numbers of chicken.
Clinton: Well, he would rather have a puppet.
Trump: No puppet. You’re the puppet.
Clinton: I am not.
Trump: She doesn’t like Putin.
Wallace: I do get to ask some questions.
Trump: I don’t know Putin.
Wallace: I’m not asking you that.
Trump: I never met Putin.
Wallace: We are going to move on to
the next topic which
is growth.
Clinton: I think Bernie Sanders is on steroids.
Trump: Well, I’m a big massive husband.
Clinton: My husband has investments.
Trump: Her husband was one of the worst
things ever. They
actually fact checked
and they said I was right.
Clinton: Donald goes around
with crocodile tears, but he
brought Osama bin Laden to
The Celebrity Apprentice.
Wallace: The next segment is fitness.
Trump: I really want to just talk
about something different.
She is very sleazy.
Clinton: Well, I know I don’t have the AIDS.
Trump: You push gays off buildings.
Clinton: He can’t prove it.
What is really troubling is
that he has not paid
a penny in federal income tax.
Trump: You should have changed the
law if you don’t like it.
You should have changed the law,
but you won’t change the law.
I sat in my apartment today.
I will tell you I sat there. I sat there
watching ad after ad after ad, all ads.
And you should have changed
the laws. If you don’t like what I did,
you should have changed the laws.
Wallace: Mr. Trump, Governor Pence on Sunday
is one of the prides of this country.
Are you saying you’re
not prepared to commit to that principle?
Trump: I’ll keep you in suspense, okay?
Clinton: Donald really is whining.
Wallace: Hold on, folks. This doesn’t do
any good for anyone. Let’s please move
onto the subject of the offensive to
take back Mosul. The question becomes,
whoever of you ends up as president,
will you vacuum ISIS?
Trump: Let me tell you, Mosul is so sad.
We had Mosul. But we lost Mosul.
Now we’re fighting again to get Mosul.
The problem with Mosul
is in Mosul.
They want to attack Mosul.
We’re going after Mosul.
I’ve been reading about Mosul.
So we’re now fighting for Mosul.
But you know who the big winner in Mosul
is going to be.
But who is going to get Mosul really?
We’ll take Mosul eventually.
So Mosul is going to be a wonderful thing.
Clinton: I just want everybody to go Google it.
“Google Donald Trump Iraq” and you
can hear the audio of him
saying Mosul.
Trump: Bernie Sanders said Mosul.
Wallace: Mr. Trump, Secretary Clinton, no.
We need to move on to our
final segment. It seems to me funny
that you haven’t prepared
closing statements. So,
tell the American people why
they should elect you.
Clinton: I’m awesome. I have made
children. I will do everything.
Wallace: Mr. Trump?
Trump: I have depleted the
Earth for ten lifetimes.
Wallace: That brings us to the end of this country.
-Compiled by Joe Valentine