The devil wears a suit by Sherman Yellen

The VP debate? You hadda work in Hollywood to understand it.

There is a great deal of editorial ink and a few tears spilled over Tuesday’s debate. The general consensus among the news mavens was that a polished Vance came off better than a wistful and sometimes stumbling Walz. That is until the final moments when the fabulist Vance claimed that Trump had gracefully relinquished the presidency — instead of admitting that what happened on Jan 6th was the worst attack on democracy since the McCarthy era.

From the moment he opened his mouth Vance was polished, and like glass, transparent, and capable of cutting our democracy rather badly when broken. And everything Vance said was broken — every statistic, statement, assertion was a broken truth. Some old teacher of mine who tried to prepare me for the working life said, “Sherman, remember. Glib rhymes with fib.” And never was glib more in evidence than in Tuesday night’s debate when Vance spoke.

I was educated by masters in the art of the lie during my Hollywood years where I worked as a screenwriter. For a long time I was in the enviable position of only meeting with heads of the drama departments and of the network. That took two Emmys and a nomination for a third to accomplish. I won’t go into my history of being lied to — sometimes in LA lying was a form of courtship — at other times an execution — but I managed to make a living and support my kids with a bit of dignity in a world of deceit.

There were many good guys who managed to rise in the ranks by talent and taste. But JD Vance is not one of the good guys. He is dangerously evil, more so because his glib is always a fib. And the world of Silicon Valley from which he came is the new Hollywood.

Remember, when the Devil wants to win converts, he leaves his horns and tail in hell and comes to earth disguised as a friendly, affable gentleman. Having known the devil in many of his guises, I saw him again Tuesday night in the person of Vance, the smell of brimstone came through my TV set, aided by the lack of fact checking, and the well-made suit and sixty-dollar haircut that is the devil’s uniform for the TV debate.

Mary McCarthy said that everything Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, including “and” and “the” — and so it was when Vance spoke Tuesday night. Lies buzzed about him like a swarm of bees that escaped the hive — ready to sting our democracy to death.

After a slow start, Walz held his own but it took a while for Vance to reveal the full nature of his mendacity. In the end of the debate, Walz won by virtue of having truth on his side, as the hooligan attack on the capitol was remembered and Vance skated to hell with his every “and” and “the.”