You may remember the October 28, 2015 Republican Debate held by CNBC.
Memory as in bad memory. The moderators were abysmal, but John Harwood stood out as the worst among them. National Review wrote at the time:
The emerging consensus from tonight’s CNBC debate is that the moderators were rude. John Harwood in particular distinguished himself by not just asking tough questions, but asking them in the most insulting possible way — interrupting candidates mid-reply, offering his own editorializing, and shouting down candidates attempting to defend themselves.Chris Christie seemed to capture the mood of the candidates and the crowd when — angry at Harwood’s hectoring — he finally said “even in New Jersey what you’re doing is rude.”
I wrote at the time, GOP needs to make an example of NBC News:
The GOP has a long history of subjecting its candidates to abuse by debate moderators.From George Stephanopolous to Candy Crowley, debates are a time for network journalists to earn their battle badges by damaging Republicans.And the GOP just sucks it up and takes it.So why would the CNBC moderators have thought the most recent Republican Primary debate should be any different?CNBC did what it thought it was supposed to do — mock and snicker at Republican candidates. Belittle them. Dismiss their intelligence and portray them as kooks.
A.F. Branco’s cartoon perfectly summed up the debacle:
NBC later was pulled of a later Republican debate.
The Wikileaks hack has revealed that Harwood was the hack. Harwood actually advised the Clinton campaign in May 2015 how the campaign should handle Ben Carson, in an email to Hillary’s communications director:
As The Daily Caller reports, Harwood also gloated over being able to provoke Trump:
In a December 2015 email to Podesta, Harwood bragged about his much-criticized debate performance in which he asked Trump “Let’s be honest, is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?”Harwood titled the email “I imagine…” and continued the sentence in the body of the email, writing, “…that Obama feels some (sad) vindication at this demonstration of his years-long point about the opposition party veering off the rails.”“I certainly am feeling that way with respect to how I questioned Trump at our debate,” Harwood continued….Earlier WikiLeaks releases showed Harwood lavishing praise on Hillary Clinton in emails to Clinton campaign staffers.
Speaking of gloating, I did some of that today:
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY