I sent this message to speakout@foxnews.com:
I am surprised at having to write this, because I am a huge fan of Fox News, and especially Brit Hume's Special Report, but I was terribly disappointed with the debate coverage at Fox, both before and after the actual debate. The normally excellent Brit Hume spent most of the time before the debate praising everyone at ABC News, due presumably to his relationships with people there, including carrying water for the author of a memo advocating harsher scrutiny for the President than Senator Kerry.
After the debate, I was stunned to see Bill Kristol and Mort Kondracke indicate that KERRY, and not Bush, had won the debate. This after a debate where Bush absolutely clobbered Kerry. (Did they see how Kerry was so defensive about the "liberal" label, and how confident and impressive the President was in pressing the advantage on every category? Did they see the "gotcha" moment when Kerry indicated that we needed good intelligence, and then Bush talked about Kerry's vote to CUT intelligence funding after the first WTC bombing?)
(By the way, I agreed that Kerry had won in the first debate, but Bush absolutely murdered him in this one.) Even Fred Barnes inexplicably judged this "a tie." After listening to coverage that was so obviously off the mark, I changed over to MSNBC, where the coverage of the debate was spot-on accurate. I hope that this is not a harbinger of things to come, because I am a big fan of Fox News. Tonight was certainly not Fox News' finest hour.