Conrad Black: The first one-on-one between Clinton and Trump was an even, if disappointing, debate

“For the United States, the last 20 years have been a multiple disaster — in the Middle East, endless war, national fragmentation and humanitarian tragedy; the greatest economic debacle since the 1930s; the admission of millions of unskilled peasants into the country illegally; doubling the national debt of 233 years in seven years to achieve annual economic growth of one per cent; and truckling to Iranian sectarian zealotry and sponsorship of terrorism while the entire alliance system has putrefied. President Obama and secretary Clinton have led the West to make common cause with the Russians and Iranians in the remnants of Iraq that both Bushes invaded, while exchanging fire in the neighboring rubble heap of Syria with the same Russians and Iranians. It is impossible to imagine any American president of living memory conducting the West into such a ludicrous crossfire.

One member or another of the Bush and Clinton families was president, vice-president, or secretary of state for eight straight terms (1981-2013) and both families put up candidates for the White House this year. The Adams and Roosevelts had distinguished presidents 20 years apart, and Teddy Roosevelt and FDR were sixth cousins and in different parties. This recent handing around of the nation’s highest offices almost without interruption for decades is not based on dazzling merit and has become, as Hillary Clinton’s endless falsehoods suggest, a corrupt practice. (Obama only managed to intrude into this bi-regency because the Democratic party’s grandees, the unelected ex officio delegates to the Democratic convention in 2008, concluded that it was time for a non-white president. The conclusion was the right one but the beneficiary of it was not.)“