I feel compelled to begin this blog post with a disclaimer.

I am a freelance blogger for Panhandle PBS, the publicly funded television station based at Amarillo College here in the Texas Panhandle.

There. That said, I now want to say that the discussion that was broadcast Friday evening was one of the most intelligent I’ve heard yet about the state of the race for the presidency.

This discussion featuring liberal syndicated columnist Mark Shields and conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks covered three critical points:

The Republican primary campaign, the Democratic primary campaign and, in a related matter, President Obama’s nomination of Garland Merrick to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shields and Brooks occasionally spar when they appear each Friday on the PBS NewsHour. They disagree on substantive matters from time to time. They were in agreement on several critical issues, though, this week.

Hillary Clinton will not be denied the Democratic nomination; Donald Trump is the likely Republican nominee; Judge Garland deserves to have his hearing before the U.S. Senate.

The most interesting aspect of what was said, though, came in the discussion of Trump and Garland.

Shields noted that Trump has won everywhere. He smoked what is left of a once-huge GOP field in Florida, Shields said, where opponents spent millions of dollars in negative TV ads. They didn’t make a dent in Trump’s juggernaut. Whatever it is that Trump has mastered, he has turned it into an unbeatable — so far! — formula for political success.

As for Garland, Shields also believes that the Republican leadership in the Senate is going to pay a price for refusing to consider the judge’s appointment to the Supreme Court. Brooks agreed that Garland deserves a hearing — and deserves to take his seat on the court — he doubts there will be hell to pay in the campaign for Republicans.

Both men also believe that Garland is the best candidate for the court the Republicans are likely to get — particularly if Trump is the GOP nominee for president. Trump will lose the election to Hillary Clinton, who then will be free to appoint someone of her liking — and could present that nominee to a Senate led by Democrats.

And so it will keep going throughout this crazy election cycle.

You’ve got to relish — and share — intelligent discussion whenever you hear it.

That’s what I’m doing here.

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If you’re of a mind, please accept my invitation to look at my blog at PanhandlePBS.org; it’s called “A Public View” and it focuses on public affairs programming aired on Panhandle PBS.

http://www.panhandlepbs.org/blogs/public-view-john-kanelis/