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Clever people everywhere — on Canadian Twitter, that is to say — believe Donald J. Trump imploded in his first televised presidential debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton. If that’s true, the next two outings should be a matter of mopping up. Clinton must have the White House in the bag. Hmm.

Trump uttered falsehoods Monday evening, repeatedly, and deployed a word, braggadocious, that describes him perfectly. He was unschooled. He dissembled. He evaded. He blustered. He fumed, huffed and puffed. He sniffed a lot and took multiple sips of water.

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Trump brought Rosie O’Donnell into the conversation, for heaven’s sake, and cited one of his own surrogates — right-wing talk radio jock Sean Hannity — as the ultimate arbiter of his position on the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Ridiculous! He touted the excellence of his new hotel in Washington.

He bragged about earning $694 million last year and about previously not having paid federal income tax. “That makes me smart,” is what he said. Madness!