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Marital, personal ties link Obama administration to Commission on Presidential Debates
The Daily Caller ^ | 8/23/2012 | Josh Peterson

Posted on 08/23/2012 3:37:34 AM PDT by markomalley

The moderator of the lone October vice presidential debate was previously married to a top Obama official, an association both ABC News and the left-leaning Commission on Presidential Debates do not view as a conflict of interest.

ABC Senior Foreign Correspondent Martha Raddatz, whose role as moderator was announced on August 13, was previously married to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski — an Obama appointee.

Genachowki and Raddatz were married in 1991, the same year he graduated from Harvard Law School. Their marriage ended in 1997; the two have a son together. Raddatz does not report on the FCC for ABC News.

Genachowski and classmate Barack Obama worked together on the Harvard Law Review, Genachowski as notes editor and Obama as the publication’s president. They graduated in the same class.

ABC did not consider the disclosure of Raddatz’s ties to an Obama appointee necessary when it issued a press release announcing that the Commission on Presidential Debates had selected her to moderate the debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican nominee Rep. Paul Ryan.

It’s unclear if Raddatz knew Obama during the 1990s when she was married to Genachowski. Neither she nor Genachowski responded to The Daily Caller’s request for comment.

ABC declined The Daily Caller’s request for comment through spokesman David Ford, who also told TheDC that Raddatz would not be responding.

Commission on Presidential Debates co-chair Mike McCurry said his organization did not take Raddatz’ prior marriage into account when selecting her.

“We selected the moderators based on their reputations for integrity and journalistic impartiality among other things,” McCurry told TheDC. “What counts is the quality of their work, not who they may have been married to in the past.”

The Commission’s other Obama administration ties include several personal friends and political supporters of President Obama who are among its leaders.

Commission board member Newton Minow, who was FCC chairman under President John F. Kennedy, was an early and prominent supporter of Obama’s 2008 campaign.

It was during his time as a summer associate in 1989 at Minow’s Chicago law firm, Sidley & Austin LLP, that Obama was introduced to the influential members of Chicago’s political scene. Minow made many of those introductions himself.

Minow, a former chairman of the Carnegie Foundation, the Public Broadcasting Service and the RAND Corporation, is a prominent member of the Democratic political elite in Chicago.

“I introduced him to many people when he decided to enter public life,” Minow told TheDC in an email.

A 2008 Vanity Fair feature about then-Sen. Obama said Minow opposed Obama’s early runs for office. Minow’s answer to The Daily Caller, however, was different.

“I was not critical of Obama’s run for political office,” said Minow. “I encourage many young people to run for office — of both parties.”

“We need good people to run for office,” he said.

When asked about the discrepancy between his two statements, Minow was non-responsive.

“I have been involved over the past 52 years in every one of the 38 Presidential debates for the League of Women Voters and the Commission on Presidential Debates,” he said, “and have often known the candidates of both parties and independent candidates before and after the debates.”

Minow — famous for his 1961 speech in which he decried commercial broadcast television as a “vast wasteland” — also told The Daily Caller that neither the FCC nor the Obama administration has consulted him on policy issues.

Michelle Obama, then Michelle Brown, was also employed at Sidley & Austin immediately following her graduation from Harvard Law School in 1988. She met Barack while he was a summer associate at the firm and was assigned to mentor him.

Obama made it to Minow’s law firm after receiving a glowing recommendation from his daughter, Martha Minow, then a Harvard law professor. Obama was among her favorite students.

Now the Dean of Harvard Law School, Martha Minow was recently on Obama’s short list for a Supreme Court nomination. Justice Elena Kagen, also a Harvard Law Review alumnus, was Martha Minow’s predecessor as dean of the school.

Obama nominated Minow’s other daughter, Mary, in 2010 to serve on the National Museum and Library Services Board.

Neither Mary nor Martha Minow responded to The Daily Caller’s request for comment about their family’s longstanding relationship with Obama.

“Dean Minow forwarded me your inquiry to her,” said Robb London, assistant dean and chief of communications at Harvard Law School. “She will not be commenting.”

“I imagine that the Commission, a bi-partisan organization, can field requests for information about its members and processes,” London added.

A spokesman for the Commission, however, declined The Daily Caller’s request for comment.

The Romney campaign also sidestepped The Daily Caller’s question about whether it would protest the Commission’s choice of moderators or its deep ties to the Obama administration.

“The Commission on Presidential Debates selects the moderators, not the campaigns,” said Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams.

The Obama campaign did not respond to The Daily Caller’s request for comment by the time of publication.


TOPICS: Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012; 2012election; 2012electionbias; abcbias; abcdisneynews; bhofascism; corruption; cultureofcorruption; democrats; democratscandals; elections; fraud; genachowski; glbtabcdisney; howtostealanelection; ivorytower; juliusgenachowski; liberalfascism; marthaminow; martharaddatz; maryminow; mediabias; michelleobama; mikemccurry; mikemccurrymaryminow; minow; newtonminow; obama; obamascandals; obamatruthfile; orwelliannightmare; presidentialdebate; raddatz; socialistdemocrats
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1 posted on 08/23/2012 3:37:44 AM PDT by markomalley
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To: markomalley
I could care less what sort of relationship those who are involved in this process have with the regime.

There is only ONE group of responsible individuals for this ongoing Chines fire drill and cluster fook and that are the Republitard Establishment A-Holes (and the candidates themselves) who cowardly assent to the wishes of the Rat Party and their sycophant lemmings in the Lame Stream Media.

Someone want to tell me that the RNC, Mittens, et al, could not have insisted that at least one of the so called "Moderators" be someone say, like Bret Baer from Fox?

This suicide pact with the devil has been ongoing for how long now and the stoooopid, Charlie Brown party keeps letting Lucy hold the football for them.

They deserve what they get!!!

2 posted on 08/23/2012 4:00:07 AM PDT by neveralib
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To: markomalley

I’ve come to the realization that whatever party gets elected that God will still bless we who put ultimate trust in Him and in spite of it all. Sure we must elect good and righteous reps but if majority of Americans are plain stupid fooled idiots then a little wake up call is necessary—if they ignore it then so be it upon them.


3 posted on 08/23/2012 4:18:23 AM PDT by tflabo (Truth or Tyranny)
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To: neveralib

Would you care if Hannity, Rush, and Coulter were the moderators of all debates?


4 posted on 08/23/2012 5:14:24 AM PDT by GOPJ (Politics is war without bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed. - Mao Tse Tung. We're at war)
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To: neveralib

Your hatred for Republicans is powerful - now, if you don’t mind, could you do an equally strong comment about your contempt for Obama and the democrat liars? I’m betting it’ll be good.


5 posted on 08/23/2012 5:16:08 AM PDT by GOPJ (Politics is war without bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed. - Mao Tse Tung. We're at war)
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To: markomalley

Newt provided the way, the path, the method.

When attacked, immediately and perhaps out of turn, strongly counter attack the moderator. A discombobulated moderator will falter. Do not assume a defensive posture.

Attack attack attack.......

Rush preaches there is no way to please the lefties and there should be no attempt to do so. Attacking the debate moderator will yield positive results.


6 posted on 08/23/2012 5:21:58 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Present failure and impending death yield irrational action))
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To: bert

“L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”
(Audacity, audacity, always audacity.)
- attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte


7 posted on 08/23/2012 5:24:16 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Roger Taney? Not a bad Chief Justice. John Roberts? A really awful Chief Justice.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Thank you, thank you, thank you

I can’t spell l’audace

The quote is also attributed to General Patton who later picked it up and for whom it was a maxim.


8 posted on 08/23/2012 5:29:50 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Present failure and impending death yield irrational action))
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To: neveralib
I could care less what sort of relationship those who are involved in this process have with the regime.

Pet peeve of mine, sorry . . . when you write that you "could care less" you indicate that you care.

You meant to write that you could not care less.

9 posted on 08/23/2012 6:55:31 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: markomalley

A rigged debate is a rigged election.

And they said the “Twenty One” gameshow scandal was bad.


10 posted on 08/23/2012 8:02:58 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Only Obama put a dog on the roof of his mouth. Dogs are friends, not food.)
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To: neveralib

Another newbie. What a surprise.


11 posted on 08/23/2012 9:42:55 AM PDT by PghBaldy (http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/08/22/missouri-voters-chose-akin-not-so-much/)
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To: markomalley

The complicity of the media in trying to keep Obama in office is blatant.

Even some of the most uninterested persons are noticing it now.

I don’t know why Hannity hasn’t put up his own debate with him or Trump moderating.

Perhaps it’s part of a plan to give them enough rope.......


12 posted on 08/23/2012 9:51:36 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: markomalley; All
With reference to Martha Raddatz's Moderator status for the Vice Presidential Debate, one hopes that Ryan's mental acuity, combined with his quick and easy articulation of ideas will enable him to expose and dispose of Biden's sleazy tactics when confronted with conservative ideas--despite any potential bias on the part of Raddatz.

An example of the Vice President's dishonest strategies can be found on Pages 235-236 of "My Grandfather's Son" by now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Prior to his appointment, during the questioning process, then-Senator Biden was the first questioner:

"Instead of the softball questions he’d promised to ask, he threw a beanball straight at my head, quoting from a speech I’d given four years earlier at the Pacific Legal Foundation and challenging me to defend what I’d said. 'I find attractive the arguments of scholars such as Stephen Macedo, who defend an activist Supreme Court that would strike down laws restricting property rights.' (Biden stated) That caught me off guard, and I had no recollection of making so atypical a statement, which shook me up even more. 'Now, it would seem to me what you were talking about,' Senator Biden went on to say, 'is you find it attractive the fact that they are activists and they would like to strike down existing laws that impact on restricting the use of property rights, because you know, that is what they write about.'

"Since I didn’t remember making the statement in the first place, I didn’t know how to respond to it. All I could say in reply was that 'it has been some time since I have read Professor Macedo … But I don’t believe that in my writings I have indicated that we should have an activist Supreme Court.' It was, I knew, a weak answer. Fortunately, though, the young lawyers who had helped prepare me for the hearing had loaded all of my speeches into a computer and at the first break in the proceedings they looked this one up. The senator, they found, had wrenched my words out of context. I looked at the text and saw that the passage he’d read out loud had been immediately followed by two other sentences: 'But the libertarian argument overlooks the place of the Supreme Court in a scheme of separation of powers. One does not strengthen self-government and the rule of law by having the non-democratic branch of the government make policy.' The point I’d been making was the opposite of the one that Senator Biden claimed I had made." (Underlining, etc. added for emphasis here) - Justice Clarence Thomas, "My Grandfather's Son"

13 posted on 08/23/2012 11:30:59 AM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: Publius; Jacquerie; All

This info needs publicity and wide distribution at the grassroots level.


14 posted on 08/23/2012 11:38:32 AM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: loveliberty2

Mr. Limbaugh was all over it today. You can’t find a bigger megaphone than that.


15 posted on 08/23/2012 11:46:12 AM PDT by Publius (Leadershiup starts with getting off the couch.)
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To: Publius
You're right, and I thank you!!!!

If you review my posts today, you will see I was not listening to him but posting here. Such a plethora of things to opine on!!!

16 posted on 08/23/2012 11:49:23 AM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: loveliberty2
Thanks. Unfortunately, Obama’s Praetorian Guard, aka media, and too many Freepers are busy beating up on the guy who made an incoherent statement a few days ago.

I long ago gave up wondering why pubbie nominees walk into the same doors every four years.

17 posted on 08/23/2012 11:57:05 AM PDT by Jacquerie (Exterminate rats.)
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To: Jacquerie
Thanks. The "dumbing down" of several generations of citizens, resulting in the the Republican Party itself becoming largely populated by many perhaps well-intentioned, but constitutionally-illiterate representatives has contributed to what you call the "walking into doors" syndrome.

Thank God for technology, for the writings, speeches, and documents of America's founding period which are available with the click of a mouse, and a seemingly new rebellion against tyrannical government!

What was covered up, relegated to the dusty stacks in libraries, censored from the textbooks, denigrated and banned from public discourse, and all but erased from the American memory (L. Cheney) may spring forth and become a powerful and truly progressive movement to expose and defeat the regressive wannabe tyrants who call themselves 'progressives.'

If that movement and passion for liberty is aroused, then the tyrants may realize that their over-reach for power may have served to bring about a rediscovery of "the People's" chains on their power--the U. S. Constitution.

18 posted on 08/23/2012 12:24:33 PM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: neveralib
They deserve what they get!!!

Yes they do, but We The People don't?

19 posted on 08/23/2012 12:33:05 PM PDT by itsahoot (Write in Palin in 2012, Just to pi$$ off the Romney botts.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Actually said by Georges-Jacques Danton on Sept. 2, 1792.


20 posted on 08/23/2012 3:23:37 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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