Bad News Bob [Schieffer]: Dan must have been pleased.

National Review Online ^ | October 14, 2004 | Tim Graham

[xsysmgr]

Bob Schieffer was easily the worst moderator of the four selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the one who most clearly favored John Kerry. This might not be surprising — after all, CBS has emerged this year as the network favoring John Kerry to the point of spreading forged documents across the country to paint Bush as a man who defied orders.

The spin was apparent from the first question, when Schieffer asked, "Will our children and grandchildren ever live in a world as safe and secure as the world in which we grew up?" This echoes the Kerry back-to-normalcy theme, that we should have less terror over terror. A week ago, Gwen Ifill jumped on the latest war news, Paul Bremer's saying that more troops were needed in Iraq. Schieffer failed to press Kerry on the most recent controversy over his statement that terrorism should be a "nuisance," like prostitution and gambling. He also failed to ask about John Edwards's suggesting people in wheelchairs would walk if Kerry and Edwards were elected.

With Bush, Schieffer seemed eager to push him into extreme-right territory, demanding he answer whether he wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and then asking why he "did nothing" as the assault-weapons ban expired. He asked Bush what he would say to an American whose job was just outsourced to another country. Schieffer's questions were laced with liberal terminology, from "a woman's right to choose" to "affirmative action."

Two questions stood out as the most biased to Kerry last night. The first was on the draft issue, a strange choice for a domestic-policy debate. Schieffer asked: "Senator, the last debate, President Bush said he did not favor a draft. You agreed with him. But our National Guard and Reserve forces are being severely strained because many of them are being held beyond their enlistments. Some of them say that it's a back-door draft. Is there any relief that could be offered to these brave Americans and their families?"

"Some of them" say it's a backdoor draft? John Kerry has been saying it's a backdoor draft all year. Schieffer wasn't so much asking Kerry a question as reading his campaign brochure to him.

The other read-the-brochure question came just minutes before: "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?" Schieffer only failed in utterly servile liberal bias by not asking "isn't it time" to raise the minimum wage?

Schieffer did ask two tougher questions about what President Kerry would do: How would he pay for his "massive" health-care plan, and would he just leave Social Security alone and kick the can of reform down the path? But the real bias in Schieffer's questions came in how they emphasized every bad-news assumption, suggesting that the country is going in the wrong direction under President Bush. Reread the previous paragraph to see how rich and poor are dividing and more people are dropping into poverty.

Take this fairly tough question to Kerry, suffused with assumptions about "skyrocketing" inflation: "You pledged during the last debate that you would not raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 a year. But the price of everything is going up, and we all know it. Health care costs, as you all talking about, is skyrocketing, the cost of the war. My question is, how can you or any president, whoever is elected next time, keep that pledge without running this country deeper into debt and passing on more of the bills that we're running up to our children?"

One question to Bush did the same: "Health-insurance costs have risen over 36 percent over the last four years according to the Washington Post. We're paying more. We're getting less." His next question to Bush was, "We all know that Social Security is running out of money, and it has to be fixed." Even the flu-shot question underlined the bad news. Schieffer couldn't imagine asking a question about anything positive happening during the Dubya Era that John Kerry might reverse if elected.

Even when pressing Kerry on the question of Catholic bishops, Schieffer went soft: "Some Catholic archbishops are telling their church members that it would be a sin to vote for a candidate like you because you support a woman's right to choose an abortion and unlimited stem-cell research. What is your reaction to that?" Whereas Schieffer challenged that Bush had "done nothing" on furthering gun control, Schieffer didn't ask why Senator Kerry has "done nothing" to defend the culture of life his church seeks to create and uphold. It would have been better to ask Kerry whether he had considered leaving the Catholic Church for a more hospitable environment for his permissive, abortion-on-demand worldview.

If John Kerry wins this election, the media elite will declare that the debates were the turning point. Then, it will be up to Republicans to explain to their supporters why they took the debate-moderator question so unseriously, and why they allowed themselves to be placed at a competitive disadvantage by letting liberal moderators set the agenda. Bob Schieffer surely underlined the need for more Republican spine on this negotiating point. Dan Rather must have watched his friend spin the debate toward Kerry and smiled.

— Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and an NRO contributor.

[Danno]

I am of the camp that Bush shouldn't have done these debates PERIOD. I am surprised this has not been discussed at length here on the forum.

When you had the lead that Bush had it is a mistake. Because Bush already has a verbal handicap that is well known and documented (said lovingly and not to put him down). Short of Bush pushing the issue, Karl Rove did not service him well in this regard. Strategic blunder.

Any negative flak Bush could have easily deflected and would have had less likely a contraction of the polls than occurred.

We live in perilous times and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve our President's full attention. These asinine and spinned out debates totally occupied our President for the past month or so. So glad they are over with so we can let fine citizens like the Swift Vets and others continue with the great job they were doing...

[Labyrinthos]

I've watched the debate twice and I still believe Bob Schieffer did a good job. He's one of the good guys trying to be fair. Some won't be happy until the likes of Hannity or Rush are moderating.

Oh please. Any doubt as to BS's bias is erased by his minimum wage question. He could have asked the question without the loaded introduction, and let the candidates spin, but he chose to spin first and then invite the candidates to react. At the very least he could have framed the question like Perky Katie Colon: "Some people claim that the gap between between rich and poor is growing and more people are dropping into poverty," rather than stating it as an absolute fact. Indeed, this is exactly the kind of crap the Bernard Goldberg cites in his book Bias -- that the gap grows and poverty increases the moment a Republican is sworn into as president, and the povery ill is cured the second a democrate is innaugerated.

[NutCrackerBoy]

That said, even if Lehrer, Gibson and Schieffer are going to pull the Kerry lever, I think they are like umpires at a World Series game. Their main concern has to be not screwing things up and trying to be fair for historical purposes. Besides, any perceived bias in the wording of a question can easily be overcome by either candidate. They pretty much can answer the question they would like to have been asked.

You are letting them off way too easily. Understanding their own biases is not rocket science, and this is not analogous to different strike zones by different umps. If there are credible claims of bias, then guys of that stature should take them seriously. Have they observed Brian Lamb? Did they observe the second debate? Certain of the questions reflected a perfectly reasonable and widely-held worldview, and I wonder if Lehrer, Gibson, Schieffer considered why each has never, ever, ever, framed a question that way.

[Lancey Howard]

I will be the first to admit that I know little about disease epidemics, etc., but I DO know that it is common for such numbers to be exagerated when budget-time rolls around. I am skeptical of government numbers, period.

Best regards,
LH

[wildwood]

i am so confused today. did we all see the same debates that these morons and polltakers did? everybody i know, even KIDS, was saying the bush wiped the floor with kerry. that all kerry did was say "this president did this wrong and THAT wrong" and that he looked so creepy when he tried to smile, like a cadaver or something, and that he laughed inappropriately and that his answers were SO lame you could hardly stand it. EVERYBODY said bush was the CLEAR winner. i can't believe even the conservative commentators saying the same things because of those stupid polls that none of us voted in!