Tough reviews for Jim Lehrer as debate moderator

San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate) ^ | 10/4/12 | David Bauder

[Haiku Guy]

NEW YORK — Jim Lehrer may be regretting his decision to come out of semi-retirement and moderate his 12th presidential debate.

The veteran PBS anchor drew caustic social media reviews for his performance on Wednesday, with critics saying he failed to keep control of the campaign's first direct exchange between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. The candidates talked over Lehrer's attempts to keep them to time limitations, and his open-ended questions frequently lacked sharpness.

The tough assessments crossed party lines: Republican commentator Laura Ingraham wrote on Twitter that Lehrer seemed "a bit overwhelmed." Comic and Democratic activist Bill Maher bluntly tweeted that "Lehrer sucked."

(snip)

[zerosix]

I just saw some local "political science prof" from our university claiming that "Lehrer lost control and by allowing Romney to curtly shut him off to answer when Obama went over his time........"

Well, I have proof that that scenario did not happen, we put a stop watch on as each candidate spoke and it was Obama who continuously blathered on generally not making sense while Romney occasionally went over but only by second or two where Obama droned one for mo than a minute.

In my opinion, and I do think Lehrer was awful but not merely for granting Obama way too many time lapses but even going so far as to coach answers out of him and second questioning of Mitt Romney's answers on more than one occasion,

[Redcloak]

Lehrer failed at Job 1: Protect Obama’s skinny ass.

[madameguinot]

For the most part he did (got out of the way), but he did have more follow-up questions for Mitt, interrupted him several times at one point, and even tried to help BHO out of his incoherent response in another.

I think it hilarious that after years of moderators picking on Republicans, a moderator is suddenly a problem!

[dfwgator]

I didn’t know until a friend pointed out to me last night, that Lehrer was in the Marines...so at least while he may tend to be liberal, I think he isn’t nearly as far to the Left as most other pundits.

[SkyDancer]

I don’t understand why all these political debates are moderated by leftist liberals? Don’t conservatives have anyone who can moderate a debate?

[dfwgator]

I’d love to see Drudge moderate a debate.

[Ohiobelle]

I loved the way they were just able to debate. We should do that more often. We saw Obama for what he really is; a community organizer for ACORN. Obama got schooled!!!

[SkyDancer]

I wish that Breitbart were still alive. He'd be awesome. Not too sure re: Drudge. I've not heard him speak anywhere. It'd be interesting to see FR folks voting on their favorite moderator.

My first choice would be Rush Limbaugh.

[dfwgator]

Drudge did have a talk show, so I think he would know how to do it.

[SkyDancer]

Okay, then number two on my list. Thanks.

[BlueDragon]

The correct spelling of that comment:
Loosers always blame the refs...

I know what you mean. People keep adding an additional "O" to "lose", when what we need to do is GET RID OF an "O".

Or we could just give up the spelling wars, go along with the program, and add an extra. As example; since lose has become loose, then ---

Looose as a gooose?

Then there are those times when an "extra" could be justified, as in certain examples of cabooose...

Aw, forget it. smaller cabOOses (only two O's) are so much nicer. Of course the triple-o types aren't always so bad, such as when not attached (through a long series of plumbing and what-not) to a hateful mouth that is a near complete stranger to actual truth.

[sportutegrl]

I think he gave Romney more time than Obama to speak. Other than that... I thought Lehrer was OK.

Actually Obama had more time. CNN confirmed that Obama spoke for more than 4 and 1/2 minutes more than Romney. During the debate, I commented that Lehrer was letting Obama go on and on, but cutting off Romney.

[CMAC51]

RE: “Lehrer sucked.” I actually thought it was good that Lehrer got out of the way and let the Romney and Obama go at it. I think he gave Romney more time than Obama to speak. Other than that... I thought Lehrer was OK.

In a debate, when it is based on answering moderators questions, the person who speaks first has the advantage of setting the direction. The person who speaks last has the advantage of saying things that do not get immediately refuted.

On the first question, Obama spoke first and Lehrer was going to proceed to a new question after Obama had spoken a third time and Romney only twice. Romney stopped him and said, "He spoke first, so I get to speak last." The contest was over at that point, Romney had won. He had removed Lehrer's ability to provide an advantage to Obama, he had shown command and control in a presidential manner, and he flatly pissed Obama off. Neither Lehrer or Obama recovered after that.

You are wrong about the distribution of time. When I made a point about this first exchange, my wife started score keeping. Obama ended up having the first and last word at a 2 to 1 margin over Romney. Unfortunately for Obama it was because he was performing so poorly that Romney didn't need to respond.

Even the time when Obama said, "I still had 5 seconds left when you interupted" and then spoke for another 30 seconds, Romney didn't have to make a point of it because that 30 second ramble did more harm to Obama than to Romney.

[RitchieAprile]

who are the two babes?

[CMAC51]

Lehrer did a fairly absent job of it. He wasn’t that noticeable, and that’s good. He’s not the story. On the other hand, when he did interject himself it was largely in interrupting Romney. The few times he interrupted Obama it was almost coaching: “Don’t you want to talk about this?” Obama seemed to ramble on and on at times, and he didn’t get stopped. Romney would cross his 2 minutes, and the interruptions would begin. This was fairly infrequent, however, in the total debate. It was just one-sided when it did happen.

Give credit where credit is due. On the first question Romney defanged Lehrer when insisted on having the last reply. "He spoke first, so I get to speak last." The contest was over at that point. Romney had won.

[rwfromkansas]

He gave Obama plenty of lifelines with leading questions for the president as he started his answers.

I was pleased that the questions were not “gotcha,” but even-handed questions on what’s your philosophy on this etc....what are the differences etc.

We can NOT count on that in future debates. They will likely be stacked against Romney.

[Haiku Guy]

I don’t understand why all these political debates are moderated by leftist liberals? Don’t conservatives have anyone who can moderate a debate?

The Conservative analog to George Step-on-all-of-us would be somebody like Rush Limbaugh. We are never going to see Rush Limbaugh moderate a Presidential Debate...

[Hulka]

Thanks. . .wouldn’t want to bring down the wrath of the Viking Kitties. It was bad enough that a moose bit my sister this morning when I was posting.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

We saw Obama for what he really is; a community organizer for ACORN. Obama got schooled!!!

At one point, Obama stated, in the context of the need for regulation, that the banks loaned money to people who shouldn’t have gotten the loans. I was disappointed that Romney didn’t pounce on that one - the reason the banks made those loans was that some community organizer in Chicago sued the banks to force them to make those loans!

So the problem of bank regulation in that case was too much of the wrong kind of regulation.

And of course everyone, Romney included, was sanguine about the Social Security Trust Fund. Which, as is plain to anyone willing to look at it, is not a government asset. Or it is, but one which is exactly balanced by a government liability. It is an IOU the government wrote to itself.

The SSTF is “invested in safe government bonds” - which is another way of saying that the government borrowed the money. And given that the government’s credit rating has been downgraded due to geometrically increasing national debt and the refusal of the Democratic Senate to pass, nay even vote on, an actual budget, it should be pretty obvious by now that investment of muct of America's retirement savings in government bonds isn’t quite the panacea the Democrats have sold it for. Adam Smith would have been utterly unsurprised:

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. - The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II

[BlueDragon]

The one in the middle is the now-former French President's third wife, Carla Bruni. On the far left is Princess Letizia of Spain.

Sarkozy narrowly lost to (French) Socialist Party candidate Hollande this last May.