1. It’s Monday, August 10, 2015.

2. It’s four days after the fact, and the Republican presidential debate still ranks among the top news items. That seems silly. The Iowa caucus isn’t until February. Election Day is 15 months away. Lots of serious issues are going to come to the fore, some we might not be able to imagine.

3. I emphasize serious, because the reason we’re still talking about a debate six months before the first significant vote is cast is Fabulous Donny Trump. His performance – let’s emphasize that word, please – had to leave anyone with a mind who watched that debate baffled.

Yes, the Fox News interrogators went after Donny with gusto. But he leaned into their punches every single time. When I was watching him answer questions about his ill-mannered remarks toward women, his position on immigration, whether he’d run as an independent and why he gave money to Hillary Clinton, my mouth was agape. I imagined I looked like the audience in Mel Brooks’ classic “The Producers” when it’s first exposed to the opening number of “Springtime for Hitler.”

4. Of course, Trump has kept the momentum rolling with his tasteless follow-up comments about Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. That has been the talk all weekend. Every other candidate who appeared on Sunday talk shows had to answer Donny-Megyn questions before getting to the reason they appeared on the show in the first place. Trump’s been called a misogynist, among other things, and has been forced to defend his attitudes toward women. 

5. And yet if you watched that debate, you have to wonder whether Donny Trump really is any meaner to women than some of the others on that stage.

In that debate, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida corrected Ms. Kelly when she asked whether he opposed a woman’s right to an abortion except in instances of rape or incest. No, Rubio said, even in instances of rape and incest. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who showed his political cowardice early in the campaign, reaffirmed his position when asked by Ms. Kelly if he opposed the right to abortion even if carrying the fetus jeopardized a woman’s life.

And former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a worthless sack of dust and feathers, said he supports the idea that the instant sperm and egg mix is when that mixture has its Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In the case of the Fourteenth Amendment, Huckabee is granting rights to random cells that he’s taking away from the woman whose body they’re mixing.

In addition, the Republicans in the debate tripped over themselves demonizing Planned Parenthood, which is one of the nation’s leading advocates for women’s health — on which former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said beforehand this nation spends too much money.

6. All this raised some thoughts:

      a) I wonder if Huckabee is going to lose NRA support for his stance. Because while granting Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, he didn’t grant the just-fertilized egg what the gun morons see as the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

     b) Why would that constitutional protection be limited to the combination of sperm and egg? As the forces needed to create that combination, should sperm and egg also be granted the rights of U.S. citizenship?

     c) Shouldn’t any woman carrying a sperm-egg combination against her will be allowed to claim a tax deduction? If this is just as important as her actual kids, they should have the same status in the eyes of the tax laws.

     d) Do these people celebrate their birthday? Why? Isn’t the date of conception far, far more important to them? Shouldn’t they commemorate when their parents got together in the bedroom of their home, or a hotel room, or the back seat of their Rambler and did what they did to bring about their arrival?

     e) These are the same people who complain when there aren’t two parents of different sexes. (Again, God forbid the parents are the same sex! Government is never too big to stop that as far as these folks are concerned). So, if the mother dies as a result of being forced to give birth, isn’t that both shameful and holy at the same time? And shouldn’t the child, or fetus, or just completed sperm-egg combination be prosecuted because of its role in having just one parent. Or do it just have the rights of citizenship without any responsibility?

    f) Given the arguments these people give, should an accused rapist be exonerated if that act of violence results in a fetus? If it’s illegal to mitigate his violence, wouldn’t he have done the nation a service?

    g) If the sperm-egg combination, at any stage in the nine months before being delivered as a child, requires care, wouldn’t it violate the constitutional rights granted it by Huckabee not to provide that care? Wouldn’t that mean that the woman carrying it has to see a doctor or else it’s violating those rights? And wouldn’t that mean that the woman needs some sort of health coverage or else she’s violating the Constitution? Thus, Obamacare seems like a necessity in your machinations. Am I right, guys?

7.  I’m still not sure why anyone else in the world believes they have the right to tell a woman what she should be able to do with her body. Each step down that path is a step toward hypocrisy, cruelty and inequality. And ludicrous.