Posted on 10/01/2004 6:59:00 AM PDT by kddid
PBS host Jim Lehrer was challenged Friday morning on claims that he went easy on Sen. John Kerry during Thursday night's presidential debate, while tossing verbal hand grenades in President Bush's direction designed to keep him on the defensive.
"I don't know what in the world you're talking about," Lehrer told radio host Don Imus, in his only post-debate interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
How does Kerry get to predict the next question...? Or was Leerer just feeding off of Kerry's responses. In either case it just doesn't seem kosher.
People used to say the same things earlier as well, that Bush would "take the gloves off" closer to the election. BULL. That was fantasy, and a bad strategy even if it were true. YOU SCORE when you CAN, not when you "want to."
I also why they didn't just settle for 2 debates. What were they thinking?
Yes, that's true almost all questions were very hard on Bush some even "loaded", but just only 1 on Kerry:
"Did our troops die for mistake in Iraq?"
He needed to ask him more questions like this.
Ping
IMO it was staged, questions fed in advance to Kerry who memorized a script and delivered accordingly. He only stumbled a couple of times when POTUS said something disarming to him... POTUS obviously expected more than 80 minutes of IRAQ and Afghanistan and 10 minutes on Iran and N. Korea -- and had about 30 minutes worth of material...
One other point: Earlier in the week Bob Schiefer said he'd discussed the debate(s) with Jim Leher and to the best of his knowledge niether had spoken to Charlie Gibson. Could it be Gibson "might" be the only "fair" depater commentator and Schiefer is going to set POTUS up?
Your post was one of the first I read this morning after logging on to FR to garner the consensus reaction of the debate. I haven't read anything so revealing since Ron Brown was killed. I sincerely believe Kerry was prepared with scripted answers that lasted exactly two minutes. You could tell the President was speaking off the cuff, he struggled a couple of times to fill his time slot. I never saw Kerry give anything but two minute speeches. That boy was prepped.
Lehrer did start out with that nasty question and continued throughout. And he pretends he isn't biased.
I stopped watching his show long ago, too.
I taped Imus, and will buzz through it later today.
I'm amazed that Imus would ask Lehrer the question!
It certainly looks that way. And if so many seperately come to the same conclusion, it appears that there might be something there. I did see one post that suggested Lehrer was just following what Kerry said in his line of questioning, that's a possibility too, but why didn't he follow any of Bush's answers and press Kerry? And why no balancing questions of Kerry's foreign policy/Iraq stance(s) in the senate?
Q 3 (to Kerry): "Colossal misjudgments." What colossal misjudgments, in your opinion, has President Bush made in these areas?
Q 4 (to Bush): What about Senator Kerry's point, the comparison he drew between the priorities of going after Usama bin Laden and going after Saddam Hussein?
LOL!!! That is soo funny and true!
Here's my take:
Bush lasered in on Kerry's NK theory, and he was about to pounce when Lehrer, spotting where this was going, inserted himself into the debate and wanted clarification that their stances were different (this was directly to Kerry). Bush announced that asbolutely they were different, and Kerry, not picking up on this, agreed. Lehrer gave him a chance to clarify and correct a stand that is basically this day's talkiing points - mulitlateral vs. bilateral/alientating allies in Europe vs. alienating allies in Asia.
He blew it, and Lehrer overtly tried to save him from himself. I am rather ticked off that nobody, but nobody, brought this up all day.
RE:CNN had some cartoon artist on last night who was about 25 and he was beyond arrogant. He said, "Nobody is talking about the Elephant in the room....Bush is just stupid." He repeated this in various other ways for about 3 minutes while the host of the show sat and smiled. (Once, the host asked, "Don't you think that's a bit arrogant of you?" The guy said no, not arrogance, just the truth.) He went on and on.
NO WHATS STUPID IS TO VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO COMMITTED TREASON-Kerry IS NOT WHO YOU THINK HE IS- so sad to me for my great grandfather and grandfather and father to have fought for the freedoms we enjoy, and now have childish, spoiled STUPID punks think they know whats best for the country and our FREEDOMS!!! because they don't or won't look at the history of the person they are voting for-
So why did our guys agree to him?? for crying out loud, just say no.
LOL!!
From what I saw, Lehrer framed each question to hammer GW's record. Not one question zeroed in on Kerry's record other than the one on integrity, which Lehrer had to know GW would, as President and a gentleman, give Kerry a pass. So we had 90 minutes of nail GW. One question about, "Is there a integrity gap you'd like to mention, Mr. President? Hehehehe." And GW said no, that as he'd always said, Kerry had served the country honorably. Has the newest Swiftboat ad come out? It was supposed to hit the airwaves today, I thought. That will take the steam out of the Kerry 'juggernaut'.
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