Dear Mr. President: Hewitt is right and you should REJECT the proposed 2020 debate plan

On the morning after a carefully choreographed and exquisitely scripted Democrat Presidential debate, Hugh Hewitt of the Salem Radio Network has a spot-on recommendation for the sitting President of the United States:

Last week, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the schedule of 2020 presidential debates. President Trump should quickly dismiss that schedule as unacceptable and announce that if any debates will be held at all in 2020, it will be only after extensive, direct negotiations between him and the eventual nominee of the Democratic Party and their respective designated representatives. And those negotiations should begin from a premise that the Republicans will no longer play by the biased rules of a deeply unbalanced Manhattan-Beltway media elite. Explicitly articulating this declaration of intent now, along with the possibility that, as in 1968 and 1972, there won’t be any debates, would do both the public and the elite media a great service.

According to a recent Gallup survey, 13 percent of Americans “have a great deal of trust” in the mass media and 28 percent “a fair amount,” with “69% of Democrats [saying] they have trust and confidence in it, while 15% of Republicans and 36% of independents agree.” So more than half the country distrusts the media, and that suspicion is overwhelming among those on the center-right. And why shouldn’t they be suspicious, given incidents such as moderator Candy Crowley’s infamous intervention in the second debate in 2012?

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Trump is the incumbent who can restore presidential debates to serious exercises in exploring the crucial differences between the two major-party candidates, but he has to begin by taking a wrecking ball to the perceived entitlement of a system begun before cellphones and the Internet and built on the thoroughly debunked belief in media “objectivity.” So start over. There are plenty of alternatives, and the best would involve open access and genuinely smart, diverse questioners who are not rehearsed to seek conflict, headlines or ratings. A lesser dose of media celebrity is a higher dose of fairness to the voters. (And please, no more idiotic “town halls.”)

He is absolutely right. President Trump cannot allow the Democrats and the media dictate the terrain on which the 2020 battle for the White House will be fought. Trump is the incumbent. He is the home team and the defending naational champion, if you want to use a sports analogy. He occupies conquered territory and he should defend it on terms in which he has at least equal input.

The moment it appears that the media and the Democrats are unwilling to meet his demands for truly fair and objective debates, he should walk away and refuse further negotiations until they fully understand that his terms will be met.

Democrats and the media seek to stack the jury, script both the prosecution and defense and set the terms so that the outcomes are most favorable to whatever numbskull emerges with the Democrat nomination.

One need only look at two recent events to see how the left always throws fits until they get their way--the Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS nomination and the current ersatz "impeachment inquiry."

With the Kavanaugh nomination, Democrats rushed in at the very end of the "advice and consent" process with scurrilous allegations against a well-respected jurist and attempted to derail the nomination. They tried to rewrite the script and force a fight on their own terms. President Trump and Senate Republicans were dead-nuts right to stay the course on the process and win the vote.

With the current impeachment circus, Democrats and the media are conducting  yet another witch hunt behind closed doors, selectively leaking and carefully massaging the testimony of alleged "witnesses" and giving House Republicans none of the rights granted the minority had in all three prior impeachment processes.

The left stacks the deck at every opportunity presented to them. President Trump should reject the proposed debate schedule and force the media to negotiate in good faith. If they refuse, just walk away.