In the movie business they call it “foreshadowing.” My grandma would have said “You shoulda oughta seen that coming.” The campaigns apparently did, because they tried to stop it. But nobody puts Candy in a corner.
Yesterday afternoon:
Candy Crowley: I won’t be a debate spectator
Moderator Candy Crowley promised Tuesday that she won’t be afraid to insert herself into the conversation at tonight’s town hall debate despite pressure from the campaigns to largely keep quiet.
The presidential campaigns put together a “memorandum of understanding” mandating that the moderator of the town-hall style debate “not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audience or enforce the time limits.” The document is not released to the public but was leaked to Time Magazine, and it details how the campaigns come together to agree to a set of rules designed to protect the candidates from unexpected moments.
After Crowley said last week that she planned to assert herself during the town hall debate – telling CNN that “[o]nce the table is kind of set by the town hall questioner, there is then time for me to say, ‘Hey, wait a second, what about x, y, z?'” – the campaigns complained to the Commission on Presidential Debates that she wasn’t following their script. While the Commission is independent and did not publicly sign off on the memorandum of understanding, it is effectively controlled by the major parties.
Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chairman of the Commission, told CBS News Monday that Crowley “got out in front of herself” in discussing her role as moderator. He said the Commission had passed along the campaigns’ concerns to Crowley and stated that it is not her job, for example, to note that the State Department disputes what a candidate has said.
Crowley did not sign off on the memorandum of understanding, and she continues to assert that she will not simply stand on the debate sidelines.
Now there is a novel concept – a debate moderator that stays out of the debate!
Guess what happened?
Candy Crowley Disgraces Herself With Outrageous Tagteam Hit on Romney Over Libya
CNN correspondent and second presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley disgraced herself tonight, repeatedly intervening to save a floundering President Obama and showing why many Americans were rightfully suspicious of her ability to moderate a presidential debate fairly.
Her most outrageous act tonight was her incorrect seconding of Obama’s statement that he declared the Libya terrorist attacks to be “terror.” While Obama did indeed use the word, this is not what he meant by it. Instead, he was simply referring to “acts of terror.” There was no mention of Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates with respect to the actual attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.
Crowley bungled the facts in attempting to save Obama from his administration’s dreadful bungling of the Libya situation. She owes the American people an apology for inserting herself into the debate in such an inappropriate and embarrassing fashion.
Obama deliberately quoted himself out of context and Crowley not only allowed him to do so, she validated his intentionally narrow reading of the facts even before he pleaded for her to come to his rescue.
It wasn’t until she was confronted by Anderson Cooper afterwards that Crowley admitted that Romney was correct. By then the damage was done. But she still didn’t apologize.
Crowley did a lousy job of timekeeping too, allowing President Obama to have nearly 10% more time than Mitt Romney (44:04 for Obama vs. 40:50 for Romney). At one point Obama had a 5 minute advantage. In order to accomplish that inequality Crowley repeatedly interrupted and/or cut-off Romney when he was trying to respond.
BTW – As you might guess, Chris Matthews thought she did a great job.
This will be the top news stories of the day in the morning. But TPM, WaPo, and various other hit-job outfits will try to bury it with stories about “the binder.” Bet.
I also predict Axelrod will start a big push to demand an apology from Mitt Romney on Libya comments, even though he was correct. They won’t get one.
Jim Lehrer should feel vindicated.
Yep.
he was a credit to her in every sense.
Woot!
And Jon Stewart is totally in love with Martha Raddatz and praises her skills as a moderator:
“I don’t know what it was, but it was amazing. The lost language of journalism being spoken on modern television, watching her moderate that debate with, oh my God, editorial authority.”
🙄
Crowley serves her masters well. She was told to blunt Romney by interrupting just like Martha Radish-head did to Ryan, let Obama filibuster and hog the clock, allow Obama to spew his Benghazi double talk, then apologize after the damage was done.
The main thing I remember from the debate was how scared Obama sounded during the first 45 minutes. His voice went up and squeaked after every 3 or 4 words. I think they read him the riot act and gave him something (uppers, B12, something) to negate his normal indolence and get him to move his ass. He was twitchy, his hands moving around, and a short jerky speech pattern. I wonder what his heart rate was during the debate. I bet it was sky high.
Yes … his pitch was so high. He was SHRILL … yep, that’s the word I’m looking for. Also, his speech pattern was very choppy. I swear, they must have beat all the “ums and ahhhhs” out of him during debate prep.
adderall-The combination of dextroamphetamine and amphetamine is used as part of a treatment program to control symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; more difficulty focusing, controlling actions, and remaining still or quiet than other people who are the same age) in adults and children …
Obama was told to blurt out “that’s not true” to every fact supported statement Romney made. Raw meat for the vile prog base.
This editorial endorsing Moderate Mitt the non-celebrity candidate might have legs.
http://observer.com/2012/10/romney-for-president/
interesting comment on it (don’t know how sincere)
I love “America needs a work horse.” We would’ve gotten that with Hillary, and we’ll get that with Romney. If Obama has been this useless and lazy during the first four years, imagine how he’ll be with the re-election pressure off? Doesn’t bear thinking about. 😦
Woot! 🙂 🙂
ro9mney camp needs to have a talk with next moderator and tell them they won’t tolerate this bullshit from them or obama. This is total bullshit with them tagteaming romney with interruptions.
Yesterday was another record-setter here at TCH.
Apparently you like drunk klown blogging.
I bow to the clown in you!
From Vodka Pundit’s drunk blog:
Holy fuck. What the hell has happened to this country when so-called “journalists” assist in a candidate’s lie and the cover up of a brutal terrorist attack and assassination of one of our ambassadors. I am beyond pissed off. She should be fired.
The Fourth Estate is dead. They should all be canned.
The line I’ll never forget from that exchange was:
Romney — “Mr President, have you looked at your pension lately?”
obama — “No I dont look at it very often. Yours is a lot bigger.”
President Yours Is Bigger
LOL!
Everything about Mitt is bigger than Barack.
size matters.
votermom you are high-larious!
lmao!! 😀
😆 :lol;
They are also passing this around as FACT. None of the Obama supporters that I know seem to care that it is a website written by Obama supporters presented as an official RR site. That teensy eensy little discloser down at the bottom is all the honesty they need.
http://www.romneytaxplan.com/
stoopid typo “disclosure”
Bumpersnicker via Legal Insurrection:
“I’m not a racist – I don’t like Biden either.”
It made me sick to see Obama and his fo’shizzle swag every time he got up to speak. Oh…but now I remember that he does think of himself as “eye candy”. Barf
I’ll take the Mormon over the Moron any day.
Candy can’t claim ignorance:
Libya leader declared it terrorist attack almost immediately. 20 American properties were attacked that is 20 terror attacks not one. Hillarys statements are not being shown where she declares it video’s fault. Romney doesn’t have all the proper points he should be talkinlg about.
tweeted this last night
Perfecto!
20 DAYS
I ventured over to MSNBC (shudder), watched a video on Chris Matthews after-debate discussion of group of 8 undecided voters. Only one thought Obama won, would vote for him. All the other 7 were still mixed (one strong Mitt vote), felt uncomfortable with debate format.
On the other hand, Frank Luntz’s group of 20 undecideds moved strongly to Mitt.
Remember that when you’re reading Obots glory in Obama’s “victory” today.
Even Chris Matthews was surprised by his group’s response.
Oh—and Luntz’s group was mostly undecideds that had previously voted for Obama.
Most of us here are favorable to Romney. Is it sour grapes to complain about the moderator?
Not when she falsely fact checks the candidates — that isn’t the moderators job. She completely cut off Romney’s train of thought by stating something incorrectly in Romney’s favor.
She has since admitted that Romney was right.
Too little, too late, Candy. Hopefully the Debate Commission will never ask you again.
Also, Romney expected bias — he didn’t expect the moderator to lie so when she said what she did it made him hesitant in his position.
Even Althouse — who is *not* pro-Romney (she voted for Obama last time & has been really pretty easy on him this year) — is outraged by this. She’s got a good take over all of the debate.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/10/live-blogging-second-obama-vs-romney.html
exactly right, Angie. You could see the wheels turning in Romney’s brain after crowley interjected with the statement (which she later had to admit was false) that obama did call it terrorism within 24 hours. You could SEE hime\ thinking to himself, “Wait, what?? Did I get this wrong? What’s going on here?” It was very unfair. In addition to being a falsehood, Crowley’s interjection had the effect of unfairly throwing Romney off his repsonse, which is exactly why moderators should stay out of it. Like sports referees.
Yes … she was really steamed about it, which is good to see.
Not when she gave obama 4 more minutes of time to talk — that’s 10% of the time. And, as Angie said, put her finger on the scale for obama.
While I may begrudgingly vote for Romney, I am not favorable to him. I am favorable to Jill Stein. And I am incensed. Absolutely livid. Four men were murdered. Obama and his media droogs need to stop with the lying. Enough already! Either tell the truth or shut the fuck up.
This was a town hall meeting debate where the people are supposed to answer the questions.
The moderator should have just done her job and stayed out of the debate. It looks like she could not stay neutral and keep her mouth shut.
My family and I will never watch CNN again we always thought they were one sided and unfair and this just confirms it.
Candy Crowley you are the worst moderator ever and you ruined what should have been a truthful debate by siding with the president for brownie points.
I think she was pissed for being assigned to the “less prestigious” debate, the one where the moderator is supposed to be practically invisible, and she wasnt going to stand for it. She really overstepped.
Like the Biden/Ryan debate,the vile progs think Obama did great because he stormed around with his “I’m the president!” & “Romney’s lying” — let them (they overlook that when Obama tried to “step to” Romney, Romney not only stood his ground, he stepped Obama up into sitting back down).
Obama did nothing play to the base — he didn’t defend his record (he couldn’t) or offer any kind of plan for the next four years. Not one single undecided was swayed to him.
I LOVED it when Mitt made Obama sit.
Behave, Barack, you’ll get your turn.
And then Barack goes whining to the stage mommy: “Candy!”
Actually he just wanted some hard candy because his throat was itching, but Crowley thought he needed a fake foul call. Yeah, that’s it …
He basically gave his stump speech. And Crowley let him get away with it by stepping on Romney’s rebuttals.
The good news is that the foreign policy debate is on Monday (is that right?) and it’s not a Town Hall Format, and Romney now knows Obama’s got nothing when it comes to Libya.
Stealing wmcb’s tweet idea
Love it!!
LOL! Love that.
lmao!
Let’s all sign up!
🙂
I wandered over to another blog to tweak someone’s nose (alright I’ll admit to provoking) by saying
Obama sounded more like a WATB begging Candy to stop Mitt whenever he felt that Mitt was saying something that he didn’t like and about time. Maybe he rallied his base for the moment but his base is a lot smaller in downtown Wisconsin than before – have only seen 1 or 2 small signs for him but more and larger signs for Romney.
Off soon to see what warning lights in car mean.
In spite of the horrible moderation and the stacked deck, Mitt held his own and President Obama did not do himself any favors. Being arrogant and petulent does not project strength. President Obama simply wasn’t likeable enough.
Honk!
Crowley said that on the Rose garden question, Obama kept looking at her so she jumped in.
one of many photoshops to come
https://twitter.com/gmannicus/statuses/258550705156132864
awesome! funny that #24 is named Bush
Killing civilians is bad, unless a D does it. Hiring more women is good, unless an R does it. The hypocrisy of the progs.
Ain’t that the truth? Mitt much more the populist last night, and also came off as much more practical. His walked the walk, now he’s earned the right to talk the talk.
Here’s my totally unscientific untrained intuition on swing undecideds in a weak economy. They will mostly defer to the non-incumbent as long as he or she does not scare them. In that respect Romney still has the momentum and it may already be his race to lose, which means BO will need to go on the attack even more. Guessing ugliness dial will be turned up.
Heheheh!
I hope some clever people find the snap shots of Crowley looking adoringly at President Obama. I caught a few shots last night that I really think she needs to see. Call it an intervention. I was embarrassed for her, hands clasped under her chin, face flushed, eyes pointed lovingly towards Obama.
I’m not the only one who saw it, so the screen shots will turn up on the internet.
She admitted later she had recently been briefed about it. Sounds like the Obama team thought Romney would hang on the word terrorism, and they set Crowley up for the misleading save.
Any thoughts or predictions about how the moderator of the last debate, Bob Schieffer, will fare?
Here’s an interview from Monday where he says he will stay out of the way unless they “filibuster”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/15/bob-schieffer-everyone-s-blaming-the-umpires.html
I don’t think he can top Cowley in bias, number of interruptions, and helping the President out by attempting to claim he was telling the truth about calling the attacks terrorism. She’s set a high bar for utter stupidity and incompetence.
He’ll be fine. He’s not a fanboy like Monica has always been a fangirl for Obama. She was so deep in the tank in 2008. Believe Schieffer at this point thinks BO is often full of crap, but as a moderator he won’t bring an agenda imo.
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FOX:
FBI participated in plot to blow up federal reserve supplying fake materials. The bomb was left at building and then he went to hotel to. detonate. Geez. I hate these sick assholes.
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