I’m not saying that Hillary Clinton put her neurological problems on full display in tonight’s debate.

I’m not saying that at all.

All I’m saying is this: for someone who has engaged in some weird episodes of shaking, including oddly staggering after a 9/11 memorial service — and for someone whose neurological health has been questioned by an ABC News reporter — it does not show excellent judgment for her to go into one of her odd shaking episodes on nationwide television with millions upon millions of voters watching.

That’s all I’m saying.

WHOO! OKAY!

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

This is a great point, and it hits Trump where he lives — but, in typical Hillary fashion, she fails to press the point effectively. The real fun starts at 1:47:

CLINTON: So you’ve got to ask yourself, why won’t he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he’s not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don’t know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody’s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.

TRUMP: That makes me smart.

Nothing hurts Trump like suggesting he’s not rich. She should have pressed that point much harder. She could have pointed to Mark Cuban in the front row, and reminded the crowd that Cuban said not all that long ago that Trump really isn’t that rich:

If @realDonaldTrump were fractionally as rich as he says he is,he would write a$200mm check to propel his campaign. He doesn't have the cash

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 21, 2016

If she really wanted to see Trump lose it, she should have harped on that point.

But instead, she dumped on Trump for not paying a lot in taxes, which allowed him to wriggle off the hook by aligning himself with the vast majority of Americans who, like Trump, hate paying their hard-earned money to the federal government.

A promising line of attack ruined by poor delivery. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Hillary Clinton campaign in a nutshell.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

[guest post by Dana]

My main thought right about now is, please God, let it end quickly.

What an extraordinarily low bar of expectation for tonight: Trump has to avoid saying “blood” and “women,” and Hillary just has to remain upright.

With increasingly tight polls reflecting the candidates in a dead heat in spite of Big Media’s efforts to push one crappy candidate over the other, both obviously go into this debate with an equal opportunity to win.

And just to mix it up, while Mark Cuban will be sitting front and center trolling Trump, Trump will also have a few special guests in the audience. Expect Benghazi to come up, and expect Hillary to have a coincidentally-timed coughing spasm as a result…

So, if you are willing to sacrifice a few hours and watch, have your adult beverage of choice ready. You’ll need it.

If you’re not going to watch, have it ready anyway because one of these two people is going to become our next president.

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Hey guys. I am in the house.

The consensus of Big Media appears to be that Donald Trump is a liar. And they’re not scared to say so. (Screenshots courtesy of Katherine Miller.)

It would be nice if she stopped lying too.

There’s something of a controversy as to whether Lester Holt should be fact-checking the candidates in real time. The answer is no. Let the candidates fact-check each other and let it all shake out afterwards. I understand the temptation, with two utterly dishonest people on the stage, to see them put straight right away. But Holt comes from NBC, the same network that gave us the screenshots above. Do you trust him to get it 100% right on the spot?

Me neither.

Never got to see him play but always admired him.