Posted on 10/22/2012 8:18:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
When CBS’s longtime Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer sits down in Boca Raton, Florida, tonight to moderate the final 2012 presidential debate, he’ll be following three journalists who became targets for criticism over how they handled their moderating duties.
Upset liberals scorned PBS’s Jim Lehrer for taking a hands-off approach in the first debate on October 3, with MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman slamming him as “practically useless” for not jumping into the debate on behalf of President Obama.
Such criticism may have encouraged the activist approach taken by ABC’s Martha Raddatz in the vice presidential debate October 11, and by CNN’s Candy Crowley in the October 16 town hall debate, as both of those journalists repeatedly interrupted the Republican candidate and larded the discussion with a predominantly liberal agenda.
So will Schieffer please liberals and infuriate conservatives by adopting the Raddatz-Crowley strategy? Or will he upset media partisans like Fineman by leaving the actual debating to Romney and Obama?
He surely won’t jump in as an activist conservative moderator. A review of the record shows Schieffer has tilted left in his previous visits to the presidential debate stage, and his approach as a CBS correspondent and anchor is that of a conventional establishment liberal:
■ Moderating one of the 2004 presidential debates between President George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry, Schieffer offered up nine liberal or anti-Bush questions, vs. only three conservative or anti-Kerry quotes, a three-to-one skew. (Eight other questions were ideologically neutral.)
For example, at one point he opened the door for Kerry to champion a standard liberal cause: “Senator Kerry, the gap between rich and poor is growing wider. More people are dropping into poverty. Yet the minimum wage has been stuck at, what, $5.15 an hour now for about seven years. Is it time to raise it?”
Later, he hit President Bush from the left: “Mr. President,...you said that if Congress would vote to extend the ban on assault weapons, that you’d sign the legislation. But you did nothing to encourage the Congress to extend it. Why not?”
■ Moderating a debate in 2008, Schieffer took a more subdued approach with few ideological questions. At one point, he sounded downright conservative, asking both John McCain and Barack Obama about how their proposals would boost the deficit by “more than $200 billion,” a figure that seems quaint in retrospect.
Schieffer actually proposed less federal spending: “Aren’t you both ignoring reality? Won’t some of the programs you are proposing have to be trimmed, postponed, even eliminated?”
But later in the same debate, Schieffer invited Obama to push for even greater spending on education: “Do you think the federal government should play a larger role in the schools and, I mean, more federal money?”
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Does a bear do his business in the woods?
I still find it hard to understand just why our guys do not use a conservative in just one debate, just one is that asking too much?
Greta van Susteren would be a great moderator, in my opinion. She asks very good questions of her guests and actually lets them talk, and is pretty good with follow-up.
I don’t think she’s a conservative (more of a moderate), but she is fair and would ask more of each candidate.
The only question is, how many minutes less than Obama will Romney get to talk?
In all three debates so far, the Republican candidates have gotten minutes less floor time.
Will Schieffer show clear bias? In the vice-presidential debate, the moderator when out for Dunkin Donuts and came back ninety minutes later. In the second presidential debate, the moderator brought a chair into the ring and knocked out the Republican guy in tights. With her foot on Romney’s head while holding Obama’s hand up, she mouthed, “I’m not biased, honest!”
And then the media dutifully described the event as one where an unbiased moderator did her solemn duty, and the president just mopped the floor with the other guy.
I don’t know how he could do that with Crowley’s heel stuck in the side of Romney’s head, but then I digress.
Schieffer will be fluffing Obama the whole time.
He doesn't want to answer too many questions about the debate moderation.
The question of the day is who is going to take responsibility for Benghazi? My question is who in the GOP establishment is going to take responsibility for the debate moderators?
Bob Schieffer passed his sell-by date in 1996...
First question to His Excellency: The nobel committee awarded you a peace prize. Do you think they should give you another?
First question to Romney: Do you feel your outsourcing jobs to China when you were in charge of the rabidly capitalistic Bain capital helped US Foreign policy by weakening US manufacturing base and thereby lowering our employment leading to a drop in our national income?
Second question to his excellency: Do you agree Romney is more like George Bush or Ronald Reagan in his foreign policy approach that is kind of like robo diplomacy?
Second question to Romney: Aside from exporting jobs to China and interfering in serious discussions with Iran and Libia for political purposes, can you cite any beneficial foreign policy matters you have been involved with? BTW, you mission to France to avoid service in Vietnam does not count.
Folks it doesn’t matter... the debate tonight isn’t likely to change anything... Voters made up their minds in Denver.. will it sway some possibly, but is it going to change the momentum of the election? Nope.
Romney isn’t going to fall apart, and the best Obama can do with the moderator cheerleading for him is a draw.
Prediction.. Lowest number of viewers of all the debates, and media will try to spin an Obama win, while focus groups will agian swing Romney.
Romney isn’t going to fall apart and collapse, Obama needs a prop to simply stand up and its obvious to anyone who isn’t in the tank for him from the get go.
We conservatives have nobody looking out for us.
There are plenty of qualified moderators who would have been at least somewhat fair. We got 3 of the worst left wingers possible.
Yes we did. And as SickOfLibs said, someone had to agree to this. Either the Romney team or the RNC agreed to this, perhaps both.
Do you think the Democrats would have agreed to four FoxNews talking heads? Why does our team agree to it in reverse?
Answer: They’re not our team!
The citizens of this nation are being gamed, massively.
I expect him to be worse. Schieffer is a doddering old leftist fool. And a tool.
“Will Liberal Bob Schieffer Be the Next Candy Crowley?”
If he isn’t, it won’t be for lack of trying.
” Folks it doesn’t matter... the debate tonight isn’t likely to change anything..”
maybe not, but whoever in the RNC allowed 3 of the worst KNOWN left wingers to moderate these debates sure tried to do us in. how do you think the DNC would have responded if we submitted the following 4 people to moderate:
1) Britt Hume
2) Sean Hannity
3) Rush Limbaugh
4) Mike Savage
All of the above have won numerous broadcast awards, so their credentials would pose no problem....RIGHT ?
Moderators are not necessary. Just give them microphones activated by times.
Sorry but your list only has 1 person on it remotely qualified. #2,3 and 4 are commentary and entertainment people.
I would love to see Brit Hume moderate a debate. Frankly he was the only washington journalist I trusted back before he semi-retired.
#2-4 are no more going to moderate a debate, than Maher, Matthews or that Maddow.
” Sorry but your list only has 1 person on it remotely qualified. #2,3 and 4 are commentary and entertainment people.”
I was giving an example of the outrageousness of allowing only known leftists, moderate our debates. Brit is not the only person who would qualify, as you well know.
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