Candy Crowley Disgraces Herself With Outrageous Tagteam Hit on Romney Over Libya
By Matthew Sheffield
| October 16, 2012
newsbusters.org
CNN correspondent and second presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley disgraced herself tonight, repeatedly intervening to save a floundering President Obama and showing why many Americans were rightfully suspicious of her ability to moderate a presidential debate fairly.
Her most outrageous act tonight was her incorrect seconding of Obama's statement that he declared the Libya terrorist attacks to be "terror." While Obama did indeed use the word, this is not what he meant by it. Instead, he was simply referring to "acts of terror." There was no mention of Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates with respect to the actual attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.
Crowley bungled the facts in attempting to save Obama from his administration's dreadful bungling of the Libya situation. She owes the American people an apology for inserting herself into the debate in such an inappropriate and embarrassing fashion.
Obama deliberately quoted himself out of context and Crowley not only allowed him to do so, she validated his intentionally narrow reading of the facts even before he pleaded for her to come to his rescue.
Here is the full Obama statement in reference to "terror" in Libya. As you can see, this was purely a generic discussion of violence:
"No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done."
Even liberal Washington Post "fact checker" Glenn Kessler has admitted this.
Candy Crowley not only inappropriately inserted herself into a presidential debate, she did so in a fashion that was so incredibly incompetent that even her CNN colleagues threw her under the bus. CNN host Anderson Cooper admitted Crowley was wrong on the facts just moments ago.
The video of Crowley's disgrace is below. Continue reading for a summary.
The controversy began after Obama referred to his earlier off-hand remark out of context, stating that "the day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people in the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we're going to hunt down those who committed this crime."
Romney saw an opening and tried to move in for the attack, not realizing that Obama was willing to deliberately misquote himself. Unfortunately for him, the Republican walked right into Obama's false reality by inadvertently referring to Benghazi incident as "an act of terror," the very same language the legalistic Obama had just referred to.
"Get the transcript," Obama commanded.
Instead of sitting on the sidelines and letting a dispute ensue or simply moving on to the next topic as a fair moderator would have done, Crowley deliberately interposed herself into the debate and actively tried to contradict Romney.
"He did, in fact, sir," Crowley interjected before trying to dismiss Romney to move on. But she couldn't leave that act of bias alone. Instead, she continued her interruption, saying "call it an act of terror."
This intervention gave Obama his only gleeful moment of the night as he called out to the very helpful Crowley, asking her repeat her attack on the Republican "Can you say that a little louder, Candy?" he cooed.
The left-leaning audience in the room chortled in approval. Crowley obliged.
"He did call it 'an act of terror,"' Crowley repeated.
Trying to salvage a shred of her credibility, Crowley added that Romney was indeed correct on the merits but it was too late. America had just witnessed one of the most outrageous acts of liberal bias in history.
In a CNN discussion after the debate was over, Crowley admitted her interruption of Romney was nothing more than a reflexive action and that Romney's critique of Obama was correct "in the main." She did not apologize for her offensive behavior either.
Not that it would have mattered. Even if she had offered a sincere apology for her unprofessional outburst, it would not have been seen by nearly as many people who watched her blocking and tackling for Barack Obama.
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