Presidential Politics' Worst Day Ever

WASHINGTON -- Children, gather round and let me tell you about a time before candidates vouched for the size of their, um, endowments on national television.

Was it really so long ago -- OK, actually, it was -- that a sunglasses-wearing Bill Clinton was criticized for going on "The Arsenio Hall Show" to play his saxophone? Clinton coarsened the discourse, we were told. How tame that seems in retrospect. How dignified.

I blame Clinton, actually, not for the Hall performance, but for a fateful moment during his presidency, at a 1994 MTV town hall, when a young woman asked, "Mr. President, the world is dying to know: Is it boxers or briefs?"

Clinton stared in open-mouthed disbelief, looked down, put hand to forehead -- then answered, "Usually briefs. I can't believe she did that." I happened to be at the event, and I couldn't believe he responded with anything other than an admonition that surely this questioner had been taught better.

But Clinton's willingness to show some leg seems positively Victorian in contrast to today's discourse.

Thanks, largely but not entirely, to one Donald J. Trump.

Recently, Trump feigned outrage at the notion that former Mexican President Vicente Fox would use "a filthy, disgusting word" about Trump's proposed border wall.

Really? In New Hampshire, as Trump was excoriating Ted Cruz for shying away from endorsing waterboarding, a supporter shouted out a feline profanity to describe the Texas senator.

Trump knew he wasn't supposed to repeat it. He couldn't help himself. "She said -- I never expect to hear that from you again!" he said, in mock anger. "She said he's a pussy! That's terrible. Terrible. Terrible."

Then Marco Rubio decided to join Trump in his gutter. Rubio's problem wasn't doing too little too late, it was saying too much too late. He suggested that Trump had wet his pants during a debate. He mocked Trump's spray tan.

Worst, most astonishingly, he insinuated that Trump was lacking beneath the briefs. "You know what they say about men with small hands?" Rubio said, smirking. "You can't trust them."

Which brings us to Thursday, March 3, which will go down as the most embarrassing day in the history of American presidential politics. At least let's hope this is as bad as it gets.

Trump began by summoning an unwelcome picture of Mitt Romney, his party's nominee four years ago. "He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, 'Mitt drop to your knees,' he would have dropped to his knees," Trump said, pointing to the floor.

This is, as Fox News host Megyn Kelly educated us oh-so-many GOP debates ago, a favorite Trump image. "You dropped to your knees?" Trump had once asked a contestant on "The Celebrity Apprentice," laughing lasciviously. "It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees."

At Thursday night's Fox News debate, Trump could not leave Rubio's "small hands" slander unrebutted. Did Trump plan it? Could he simply not restrain himself from answering the assault on his manhood? It's hard to tell which would be worse.

"He hit my hands," Trump said, unprovoked, minutes into the melee, holding up his digits for viewing. "Nobody has ever hit my hands. I have never heard of this. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee."

No, fact-checkers! No! What's next, an affidavit from the wives?

"OK, moving on," said moderator Bret Baier. If only. As I write this column, a headline on CNN.com reads, "Donald Trump defends size of his penis."

This might be funny -- these poor guys and their anxieties -- if the stakes weren't so high. Gender solidarity impels me to suggest a solution for this juvenilia: a debate stage populated by women. That would take care of the playground insults, the shouting, the constant interrupting and talking-over.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, you have got to do better than this," moderator Chris Wallace said at one point, breaking up the schoolyard fight between the candidates who referred to each other as "little Marco" and "big Donald."

Roman emperors once placated the masses with bread and circuses. Today, no bread is required. Politics is all circus, all the time.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.