Impartial Moderators and Undecided Voters in the Land of Unicorns
Heading into last night’s debate, I didn’t believe Candy Crowley would be an honest broker or that the room would be filled with “undecided” voters. Both doubts were proved true at the same moment.
Of all the statements that Crowley decided to fact check, why that particular one about what Obama said or didn’t say about terrorism the day after Benghazi? Why not, for example, his statements about gas and oil leases? Or his claim of five million jobs created? Why the “terror” claim?
For five weeks now, the story about what really happened on September 11 in Libya has leaked out in dribs and drabs, strongly suggesting a cover-up of scandalous proportions somewhere in the administration’s pipeline.
No one with the least familiarity fails to remember that in the earliest days, right up through Obama’s speech to the United Nations, a “filmmaker” in the U.S. was being blamed for inciting the violence. And no one who doesn’t remember that should rightfully have reason to recollect the anodyne comments Obama made on September 12 in the Rose Garden right before jetting off to Vegas.
So why did Crowley recall seeing or hearing the word “terror” in the generic phrase “acts of terror”?
The obvious conclusion—and, for me, the only logical one—is that she was tipped off ahead of time to Obama’s argument, which he had prepared, when the issue came up. (But bad on Romney for not having a devastating two minutes rehearsed ahead of time. It was a sickening loss of opportunity.) Without paying particular attention to the context, she inserted herself into the debate to say, yes, the president did say it was an act of terror.
As for the people in the room, if they were truly undecided, why did they applaud when she “corrected” Romney?
That revealing moment instantly put the lie to the whole premise of the debate, both in terms of the “impartial” moderator and the “undecided” participants. Crowley and the majority of the audience were Obama partisans.
Why Romney and the Republican political leadership believed either premise enough to go along with this format and this moderator can best be explained by two words: stupid party.
Comments
What was the word that Candy was referring to? Terrorism rather than terror? Remember when the MSM gave Oblunder a pass for saying (oil & gas) reserves rather than proven reserves? Just like there’s a significant difference between reserves and proven reserves, I believe we’ll find the same between terror and terrorism. Under (US) law, doesn’t terrorism by definition include “pre-meditated”?
As the Oil and Gas Journal correctly pointed out, the “increase” in oil from public lands comes from the oil leases that were signed during the Bush administration.
Unlike in the make-believe world inhabited by Obama and the adoring Left, out here in the real world, it takes 2-4 years to bring new production on line, with the offshore and more remote wells taking the longest.
There seem to be swamp fumes (decaying corruption is pretty overpowering) in the Beltway. People who have spent their lives there can’t be trusted to think straight. One of the fume-byproducts is the idiotic idea that “Liberal Democrat” is the baseline philosophy for this nation, and that Democrats are the baseline party and arbiters of legitimacy. GOP corruptocrats like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell just go along with it.
That’s how we get An obnoxious, smarmy, self-satisfied 64-year-old leftist who still calls herself “Candy.”
I never cease to be amazed by people who monday-morning-quarterback political debates or campaigns, especially when they criticize things after the fact. In this case
I don’t suppose these critics ever consider the possibility that the moderator will be partisan, but that they can counter that during the debate. It might even be possible that the campaigners would consider such a “gotcha” as not likely to affect thing that much. They might even be right.
This is not to pick on the author in any special way, but in context of monday-morning-quarterbacking I do have one question for Mr. Engel: how many political campaigns have you won?
Every one is criticizing Romney for dropping the ball on Libya. But show me one person that could recover very fast when these two ya-ya’s said Obama called it an act of terror on Sept. 12. I couldn’t believe what I heard. I had to physically lift my jaw off the rug.
Was Crowley tipped off? While it’s not odd that Pres. Obama had a prepared response, in case Romney brought up the Rose Garden speech, I wonder how many political reporters, even those working the White House beat, would have remembered the president’s speech well enough to acted like Crowley did in the president’s defense. Since the exchange has happened, most journalists have had to indeed look at the transcript to find out what Obama said that day. Crowley apparently knew exactly what Obama was referencing.
My gosh, obama went before the UN and called this terrorist act a “spontaneous protest caused by the video”. His administration paid $70,000 in ads in Pakistan saying the same thing. This meme went on for two weeks. He never called it a terrorist act just like he has never called Fort Hood a terrorist act. The obama administration and their propaganda arm…the media… will not report any of these murders on our soil caused by muslims acts of terror. They call them acts of the mentally challenged instead. They think we are stupid. They hope our memories are no poor that we forget the real facts and accept their lies. This whole turnabout is what is called covering butt. Obama put out the wrong message for two weeks and is backtracking after all the information has come out refuting his statements. Obama proved to be a liar in the 2nd debate and so ddid Candy Crowley.
As far as the Rose Garden speech went, obama was as wooden as I have ever seen hilm. His whole attitude was boredom. He sounded like he was reading a script with his heart not in it. Where was the soaring rhetoric he has spouted over the years? His whole attitude was he was wasting his time making that speech. I’ll admit it was a good speech as written but not with his delivery.
I don’t see how anyone can say obama won this debate. He said nothing about his record. He couldn’t because it stinks. The only thing he has accomplished is a destructive economy with no jobs and loss of homes for our citizens and destruction of the health insurance. He flat out lied about Libya. He couldn’t tell us what he was going to do with four more years because if he did he wouldn’t be re-elected for sure. It was all platitudes and self congratulation and calling Romney a liar. This is a big comedown for a “messianic” figure who said in 2008 he could rol back the seas and heal the planet. I haven’t seen the seas rolled back and certainly the planet is not healed unless you count healing by fire. The world is in flames and it is his fault for being so weak. The rest of the world behaved themselves when we were strong but when we became weak they all took advantage knowing obama is what osame bi;n laden called a “paper tiger”.
There were obviously a number of failures which should be investigated and understood. But the question on this thread was whether Obama said “act of terror” with respect to the attack in Benghazi.
“Please proceed governor”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-17-2012/democalypse-2012—the-second-debate—now-including-the-president—benghazi