Candy Crowley’s Debate Moderation Exemplifies Why Americans Do Not Trust Their Media

mediaite.com ^ | 8:42 am, October 17th, 2012 | Noah Rothman

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

On Monday, I wrote that it would be wrong to prejudge CNN host Candy Crowley before she turned in her performance as a debate moderator. Just the week prior, ABC reporter Martha Raddatz was preemptively criticized for inviting President Barack Obama to attend her wedding in the 1990s, but she ended up being a straight moderator who advanced the vice presidential debate admirably. I wanted to extend the benefit of the doubt to Crowley, to not preemptively criticize her before she was worthy of criticism. Well, the verdict is in and criticism is entirely warranted.

My singular take away moment of last night’s debate was one that elevated Crowley from moderator to debate participant. Crowley shot from the hip and echoed a talking point from the Obama campaign regarding their handling of the Libya attack to criticize Mitt Romney mid-debate. What’s more? She was wrong. Crowley did her profession a disservice last night and confirmed many American’s deepest suspicions about the media in the process.

RELATED: Candy Crowley: Romney ‘Right’ That Obama Didn’t Call Libya Terror, But Thought ‘He Picked The Wrong Word’

During the debate, when President Obama was challenged – as his administration has been for weeks – about the White House’s handling of the attacks in Libya, he bristled with indignation over the suggestion that he was taking this attack with anything but the utmost seriousness.

Romney responded by criticizing the president for his administration’s efforts to create the public impression that the attacks in Libya arose from a series of demonstrations against an offensive YouTube video. He accused the president and his administration of refusing to call the attack in Libya an act of terrorism for nearly two weeks. Obama objected and told him to look at the transcript. Crowley, rather than moderate the exchange, jumped into the fray and said that Obama had, in fact, called the incident terrorism.

*******************VIDEO AT WEBSITE LINK************************

Candy Crowley Admonishes Romney

*********************************************

The timeline of events regarding Libya is clear. After weeks of the president’s surrogates, and the president himself on programs like Late Night with David Letterman and at the United Nations, saying the Libya attack resulted from a spontaneous demonstration, the story began to unravel. Drip by drip, it became clear that security at the consulate was lax, the station had come under attack before and there was never any demonstration outside the Benghazi consulate.

Knowing they were caught in a distortion of the truth, the Obama campaign began pointing to the president’s Rose Garden address on the day after the 9/11/12 attacks to show that his administration had always referred unambiguously to Libya as an act of terrorism.

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for,” said Obama in the Rose Garden on September 12, after two paragraphs of recounting how Americans responded to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Obama campaign, knowing that they had advanced a false narrative for weeks and were being called on it, found the word “terror” in his initial response and relied on that speech to show that the president had known the Libya attack was terror all along.

This is wildly offensive to everyone who followed the story closely, but the president seemed to think that he could perhaps get away with it if he had the assistance of complicit journalists who would not fact check that hard. He could not have known the kind of gift he would receive from Candy Crowley — amid a presidential debate, no less.

Following the debate, Crowley appeared on her network where she shrugged and half-heartedly admitted that Romney was correct – that the Obama administration never described the Libya attack as a terrorist act and that they spent the better part of a month trying to convince the nation that what happened in Benghazi was anything but a premeditated assault. But, her instincts in the moment led her to chastise Romney because she felt “he used the wrong word.”

*******************************VIDEO AT WEBSITE LINK******************************

Candy Crowley: Romney ‘Right’

It was a shameful display and an indictment of so much of what is wrong with the media today. Broadly, it is also the reason why so few Americans trust the fourth estate –reporting means never having to say you’re sorry. Sometimes engaging in inaccurate opinion journalism does require a correction and Crowley was wrong and I believe she should make it far clearer than her equivocating mea culpa last night.

[Wings-n-Wind]

[CatOwner]

And yet the next moderator might be even more biased for the Democrats. The press doesn’t care much what the public thinks.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Invite for Graphics for this little thread,....

[RummyChick]

This is even more disturbing now that we know about her interview on Sept. 30th

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2946158/posts

[Reddon]

On Monday, I wrote that it would be wrong to prejudge CNN host Candy Crowley before she turned in her performance as a debate moderator.

On the other hand, Mark Levin, in the first 10 minutes of his first hour yesterday before the debate said of Crowley "Somehow she will screw it up". Mark was right on as usual.

[The G Man]

"Candy Crowley’s Debate Moderation Exemplifies Why Americans Do Not Trust Their Media"

Or their replacement refs:

[bronxville]

“But, her instincts in the moment led her to chastise Romney because she felt “he used the wrong word.””

Which was none of her business. It was Obama’s place to debate for himself, but as one heading from American Thinker stated, she was his teleprompter. It was a disgusting display of partisan and won’t be forgotten for a long time. Don’t know why no one in the media mentions that looked like a set-up.

[GOPJ]

In what appears to be a bizarre coincidence - in every 'debate' the democrat was given more time - and the Republican was interrupted more.

If an ambassador had been raped and murdered on the anniversary of 9/11 - while Bush was President - and Bush had lied about it - AND sent his people out to lie about it - the first question OF THE DEBATE would have been about that issue.

[ari-freedom]

I did not know Candy was a Maharishi until yesterday!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sUv2kQjyXI

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

H/T TO Hot Air.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Other people have pointed this out, but why do Republicans keep agreeing to raging Libs as debate moderators? When has one of these moderates ever done anything other than side with the Dems? Lehrer was about as good as it gets and he was quiet. Conservatives can whine all we want about Candy Crowley but no one is listening and Crowley certainly doesn’t care. She accomplished her mission last night.

[Bitsy]

I don't think she screwed America (she's not that important) as much as she reinforced what we already knew. Mainstream media is leftist media and will do anything for the leftist agenda. They are pimps for the administration, an insult to true journalism, limited thinkers, tasteless, reckless and have brought news reporting to the lowest level.
Thanks, Candy, for reinforcing my decision to vote Romney and you and yours can KMA.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ROFL!....

nice!

[Darksheare]

Yeah, since when is a debate fair and honest when you end up having to debate Brak the Braindead AND Omega Moo the debate “moderator?”

[loveliberty2]

"Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." - See "Letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785," in Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), pp. 814-815.

". . . he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him." - Jefferson

When a man stands before the world and makes claims which are as easily disproven as those made by the President last night, then, truly, "his infamy becomes more exposed."

The 5-minute Rose Garden statement was on FOX Radio this morning, and it reveals that both Crowley and the President might take Jefferson's warning to heart: "Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice."

American voters saw the "chicanery," the "dissimulation," the "trimming," the "untruth," and the "injustice" attempted by avoiding the real question from the audience, and on November 6, both may see that the President did not "extricate" himself from the "difficulty" of his attempted cover-up of a terrorist attack on his watch.

[mrsmel]

Even in the vice-presidential debate, the ‘rat was given more time, which might not mean much on its own, but it’s been the case in every one of the debates, amongst other biases.

[UCANSEE2]

Even in the vice-presidential debate, the ‘rat was given more time, which might not mean much on its own, but it’s been the case in every one of the debates, amongst other biases.

That's because it takes MORE WORDS to cover up for a LIE.

[Carry_Okie]

Just the week prior, ABC reporter Martha Raddatz was preemptively criticized for inviting President Barack Obama to attend her wedding in the 1990s, but she ended up being a straight moderator who advanced the vice presidential debate admirably.

Equine feces. In addition to tolerating Biden's constant interruptions of Paul Ryan, Raddatz added 31 of her own. She is, after all, married to an Obama bundler.

Why is it that conservatives feel compelled to offer such undeserved deferencea to outright Marxists in order to appear "even handed and objective"?

[mrsmel]

True. The flip-side, if people aren't too stupefied to notice it, is that it also gives them more time in which to dig their hole deeper. Problem is, a large portion of the voting public might be that stupefied.