Hillary Clinton is smug while Donald Trump lies: analysis

There’s little agreement on the US election but lines are drawn in the great shark debate.

Columnist Miranda Devine ­endorsed Donald Trump in The Daily Telegraph yesterday:

For Donald Trump, the Great Debate went according to plan. The mainstream media for the most part mistook Hillary Clinton’s smug, catty needling of him as poise and command, and awarded her the win … Even when he was silent, his face spoke a thousand insults as a red pantsuited-Clinton industriously ­recited her swot points.

But at The Sydney Morning Herald, veteran Canberra hand Tony Wright suggested The Donald had enjoyed some familiarity with lines of Peruvian marching powder:

Donald Trump made a fool of himself so many times it wasn’t worth counting. He told half-truths and plucked lies out of the air (“I opposed the ­invasion of Iraq”). He blurted streams of incomprehensible free association. He raved, interrupted and sniffled like a coke addict.

The opinion editor at The Australian Financial Review gave the job to a US politics expert, Tom Switzer:

Trump, by doing better than anyone had the right to expect, lived up to the adage that low expectations are a priceless political gift. That Trump did better than expected is not a view one is likely to hear among the political experts.

An update on Time magazine’s ­online poll on who won the debate:

Hillary Clinton, 45 per cent; Donald Trump, 55 per cent (1,919,981 votes).

The US National Oceanic and ­Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, is on the side of the Noahs:

Sharks have been known to attack humans when they are confused or curious. If a shark sees a human splashing in the water, it may try to ­investigate, leading to an accidental attack. Still, sharks have more to fear from humans than we do of them. Humans hunt sharks for their meat, internal organs and skin in order to make products such as shark fin soup, lubricants and leather.

Tony Abbott distances himself from surfing buddy Mike Baird on 3AW:

I’m lucky to surf on Sydney beaches, (which) since the 1940s have been protected by mesh. Now if it’s good enough for Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, for the life of me I don’t know why it’s not good enough for the north coast of NSW … I don’t know why we don’t have a commercial shark fishery up there because, ­frankly, if it’s a choice between people and animal, I’m on the side of the people every time.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte calls for the death penalty, saying atheism means people have a lack of respect for the law, The Independent reports yesterday:

The death penalty was officially abolished in the largely Catholic country in 2006, but Mr Duterte said that “if God doesn’t exist”, capital punishment is the only way to ensure justice for the victims of terrible crimes … Duterte also questioned God’s existence … and addressed God directly in his speech, asking “where are you?”

The Australian’s Southeast Asia correspondent Amanda Hodge reports how Duterte is concerned about the deaths, even as the palace declares its war on drugs a success, September 13:

The latest statistics from the Philippine National Police reveal a total of 2956 people have been killed — 1466 by law enforcement officers and 1490 by unknown ­assailants — since Mr Duterte took office in late June, promising to feed the fish in Manila Bay with the bodies of drug pushers and criminals.