Trump has been criticized this election cycle for not giving enough policy specifics (see: HuffPo, Business Insider on his economic speech, which even NPR admitted had proposals). And sure, that’s a fair criticism – if accurate and if you’re also going to apply it to Clinton.

Of course, that rarely happens. See Slate’s Jamelle Bouie, who, when writing about Clinton’s supposed strength in last night’s NBC Forum, cited her veterans’ mental health response, calling it a “competent answer,” which showed she was “prepared” and “serious.”

What did it actually contain? A bunch of fluff, and an allusion, not once, but twice, to some sort of an “agenda.”

“I rolled out my mental health agenda last week and I have a whole section devoted to veterans mental health,”Clinton said, and, later, “We have to do more about addiction…so I have put forth a really robust agenda, working with [groups like VSOs and TAPs] who have been thinking about [veterans health].

Besides “agenda” being political code for “low on the priority list,” Clinton’s answer was even worse than the transcript would imply, because she spent the first few sentences speaking, quite slowly (slow enough to repeat a prepared script, perhaps?), wasting valuable time and preparing us for her sleep-inducing, non-policy oriented answer.

How did Trump do on the same question? Real proposals: 1) Creating a mental health division (how is there not one already?), 2) Overhauling the VA, and 3) Allowing veterans to go to private hospitals and doctors on the governments’ dime to help avoid mental health issues before they get worse.

Yet all Jamelle could talk about was how Matt Lauer coddled Trump (really?) and let him go on interrupted (incorrect) during his “[in]coherent” and “[non]factual” answers.

The only person here with poor instincts here is Jamelle, who is losing ways to shamelessly come up with pro-Clinton narratives. She was a disaster last night, she will be a disaster in the debates, and the media will keep distracting us away from her terrible performances with immediate reaction storylines like Lauer’s incompetency or Trump’s Russia praise (they’re still trotting this one out…).

As Laura Ingrahm tweeted, the media calling the contest a draw was a “sure sign that Trump won the night.” The public will be the official measure of record this election when we vote in November, and it’ll sure be fun to watch the liberal elites squirm in their seats and try to keep straight faces as Trump wins state after state.