Debate Flashback: When Al Gore Invaded George Bush's Personal Space

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In an upcoming book, Hillary Clinton claims that in their final 2016 debate, Donald Trump invaded her personal space:

Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly ‘Back up you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me so back up.’ I chose option A. I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off.

The claim is, of course, ludicrous. Watch the video.

Commentators are already noting the irony of Mrs. Clinton's complaint, given that she's been married to a serial space invader, as it were, for 40+ years (see the cases of Juanita Broderick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones and others we will probably never know about).

In fairness, Trump's words in that debate were strong and aggressive, often personally so, though anyone following the primaries would know that this was Trump's M.O. in every primary debate, where his targets were other men.

Not including Marco, of course.

It's rich that a "feminist" like Clinton would imply that things should be different because she's a woman.

During the early primary race, I thought Trump's debate style was obnoxious and off-putting. Later, I came to think it was righteous and effective, or at least it was so in that debate with Clinton. I suspect his lively performance that night was one of the reasons why he won.

And now Hillary is whining that it was unfair.

But back to personal spaces. The most memorable personal space intrusion in modern debate history (indeed, it's the only one that I know of) was Al Gore striding up to George Bush in their final 2000 debate in St. Louis. I have no idea whether it was planned or even really intentional. But in any case, it backfired, with Bush feigning a funny surprised greeting at Gore's sudden looming appearance, eliciting a laugh out of the audience and an awkward grimace from Gore.