Posted on 11/04/2015 5:16:24 AM PST by Kaslin
The competing Republicans presidential campaigns had a meeting on Nov. 1 to discuss their concerns with how the Republican National Committee had planned debates with the media. That's a healthy development, considering the CNBC debate, in which liberal journalists asked one too many deliberately snide and hostile "gotcha" questions attacking the GOP candidates, and the candidates exploded in anger.
A debate among the Republican presidential candidates is supposed to benefit Republican primary voters. The moderators would, ideally, ask questions that reflect the values and questions of GOP voters, not the hive mentality of liberal partisans.
To this end, Ted Cruz this weekend suggested banning anyone from moderating a GOP primary debate if they have never voted in a GOP primary. Liberal journalists developed the vapors -- probably because they don't know any colleagues who ever voted Republican.
The RNC's action to drop NBC and Telemundo and whole Comcast brand from debates is long, long overdue. It's at least a signal that the GOP will no longer just lay back and accept this double standard. Already, you're hearing media griping about the Republicans being against a free press if they try to exclude hostile networks. The horror!
But Democrats refused to debate on the Fox News Channel for their last two competitive campaigns (2008 and 2016), and nobody in the liberal media found a threat to a free press.
You have to go back to April 2008 to find a debate where Democrats were faced with hostile questions, when ABC hosts George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson dared to ask Barack Obama one question about his ties to ex-terrorist Bill Ayers. (This was the year when the media's debate questions to Democrats were so notoriously soft, even "Saturday Night Live" produced a parody, with a satirical Jorge Ramos asking Obama if he could fluff his pillow.)
Apparently, that pillow-fluffing routine was no joke. That's what was expected, and any journalist who veered from the script had hell to pay. After the Stephanopoulos-Gibson debate, their colleagues howled with outrage. The Washington Post's TV critic back then (Tom Shales) called it a "shoddy, despicable performance" that marked a "step downward for network news." On MSNBC, then-anchor Keith Olbermann growled: "The campaign may have seemed dirty. It had nothing on one of the moderators of the debate tonight."
So, when it's liberal journalists antagonizing GOP candidates, the candidates are supposed to stop their whining. But when Barack Obama gets a tough question about his past, it's "dirty" and "despicable."
No matter, really. America sees through the nonsense. CNBC thoroughly humiliated itself, and anyone in the press rising to the defense of the indefensible risks the same embarrassment. Oh, and how tone deaf they are! Predictably, there are liberal journalists out there arguing that Republicans were just pretending to be upset by the nasty questions. Disgraced ex-CBS News anchor Dan Rather, on CNN on Sunday: "I think most people understand it's part of the political game, particularly with those on the right side of the political spectrum, they're going to attack the press because a large part of their constituency likes it."
Dan Rather knows something about trying to destroy Republicans with snide and hostile "gotcha" questions. Recall him asking George H.W. Bush on national TV the Iran-Contra "question" that "You made us hypocrites in the eyes of the world!"
MSNBC's Mike Barnicle bizarrely claimed more objective media would hurt the GOP: "If the Republicans got their wish of impartial moderators, impartial reporters asking questions, the Republicans would lose one of their biggest issues, which is running against the media."
He needn't worry. There won't be a day, not a single day, from here till next November, where the "objective" "news" media won't go out of their way to savage Republicans. The GOP will have plenty to discuss. If the CNBC debate is a measure, they will be very outspoken indeed.
Astonishing and mind numbing that it took so long to stand up against this type of “bullying.” And very telling that it took the “outsiders” to make it happen.
Like it or not...............
Iffen it weren’t for TRUMP....................
I think the candidates need to have a list of questions they want to discuss. submit to said debate mods. then proceed to answer the questions submitted regardless of the question asked. down the line.
Even Fox is jumping on the ‘if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen’ meme.
As Cruz tried to tell the dingaling that comes on before Hannity last night, debates are about informing the voters; what they are not suppose to be is some sort of contest between candidates and moderators.
Seriously, the egos on these media idiots.
Someone needs to explain this to the leprechaun as well.
I watched her show last night because I knew Cruz was going to be on and she was almost as obnoxious with him as she was with Trump on the debate.
I don't like her!...don't like to listen to her!!!
The debates have turned into a sick kind of gameshow called, “Let’s Make Conservatives Look Stupid.” The hosts snicker and whisper and high five each other for particularly good “gotcha” questions.
Note it is not called “Let’s Make Republicans Look Stupid.” Only Conservatives—who threaten the sick status quo. Kasich got kid gloves and was blown kisses in the last one.
Turn the sound off. That's Ms Kelly at her best.
This change is long overdue! We have our own cameras, any half literate imbecile can be president. We can find our OWN cameras and moderators and feed the media OUR signal.
Bottom line is, They need US, we don't need them!
Wait a minute... this isn’t about the FR moderators?
/sarc
They all make me sick! It's obvious that they have given up on Bush and are now pushing Rubio.
It’s Netflix time!
“bullying”
Exactly.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/republican-candidates-request-incredibly-specific-list-of-debate-demands/
Get the “incredibly specific” rhetoric?
One of the incredibly specific demands: “Can you pledge that the temperature in the hall be kept below 67 degrees?”
The MSM would like to show all the GOP candidates sweating like pigs, like Nixon in `60. This is an example of the petty BS we’re sick of taking from this lefty mothers.
What’s next? “Can you promise that none of the moderators will shoot spit wads at the candidates?”
If Hillary broke sweat or saw something that offended her, heads would roll at that MSM minitru network.
Yes they were indeed trying to make the candidates look stupid. They were also extraordinarily argumentative. Rude, as Christie said. They were arguing back, saying things like “I did the math and you are wrong”, and “even if you raise the rate you still come up short” and “Are you not going to answer my question?” and “too bad you used your time on something else”....
These were absolutely the worst I’ve ever seen. The moderators spoke for half the time it seems. They spoke on top of the candidates all the time when generally they should say “time” and let the candidate at least finish a thought or a sentence.
The grilling of Carson - whom I do not support (I support none yet but unlikely to be Carson even though I like him) - was really rude. It is not for the moderator to tell the candidate how much money he has to spend! It is the moderators job to ask the candidate his plans. If the numbers “come up short” then follow up with a question such as “if this does not raise $3 trillion a year, do you plan to borrow, cut, or find other sources of revenues?”. It is not for the moderator to say that well, your plan doesn’t raise the same money so it won’t work, as if every candidate is bound by chain to these ludicrous levels of federal spending.
If it were not for DJ Trump none of the GOP candidates would have been able to marshall the stones to fight back. It always takes on brave person to stand up first then others follow.
It's the equivalent of allowing a schoolyard bully to take your lunch money because you fear being verbally abused if you don't hand it over.
None of this would have happened if Donald Trump did not enter the race. We would have the predictable patronizing and humiliating debates with the predictable results.
Do you think the Democrats would allow their debates to be hijacked in such a fashion? Can you ever imagine the Democrats agreeing to a debate moderated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Steyn?
Trump needs to be ready to pounce if the moderators take Hillary’s side.
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