b rent Bozell
Say No to Feisty Liberal Moderators
Oct 24, 2012
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In the final debate, liberal CBS anchorman Bob Schieffer did it right. He moderated without asserting his own political opinions. Indeed, if this was all you had as a compass, you'd never know where he leaned. It was a welcome change from the Raddatz and Crowley libfests. On the morning after the debate, CBS invited Fox's Bill O'Reilly to discuss the debate performances. Interestingly enough, he faulted them all, while CBS's Charlie Rose defended them all.
Rose tried to suggest these debates reveal something more than policy differences, they reveal demeanor and temperament. "Well, then let's have Dr. Phil interview them then," shot back O'Reilly. Naturally, Rose stuck up for all his media colleagues: "Oh stop that. It's not Dr. Phil. You couldn't have done better in terms of the kind of people who are making an analysis and an assessment of this than the guys who are doing the moderation."
Rose didn't discern between the four "guys" moderating. Nor did O'Reilly. But there were differences.
O'Reilly is going against the conservative grain on this when he faults them all. In the first debate, old PBS hand Jim Lehrer let the candidates debate, and for that he was savaged by liberals for "losing control" of the evening.
Some journalists bitterly complained Lehrer was "useless" and even said he should have stayed retired.
In the second debate, ABC's Martha Raddatz demanded fiscal specifics (and then complained she wasn't getting them) from Paul Ryan, but refused to demand the same from Joe Biden. By the end of the evening, she was interrupting so much it seemed like she was interrupting Biden interrupting Ryan.
In the third debate, CNN's Candy Crowley outraged viewers at home by selecting questions from clearly left-wing "undecided voters." She then compounded the error by enabling Barack Obama in his Libya lies. Liberal in the media rallied around Crowley like she'd scored the winning touchdown.
Welcoming a feisty moderator sounds like a terrible idea -- at least as long as the Republicans keep lining up a unanimous cast of four media liberals to do the moderating.
O'Reilly insisted the moderators "have to come in with a 60 Minutes mentality and ask questions and get answers." No they don't, and no they shouldn't. They are not the debaters. They are called moderators for a reason. Their job is to ask good questions, and get out of the way.
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