- The moderator's role as fact-checker became an issue when Matt Lauer didn't challenge Trump’s false claim about Iraq
Yahoo NewsDoes it get any better?
It certainly can't get much worse.
Either liars are trying to work the refs -- loved the Harvard 'professor' who thought saying Matt Lauer interrupted Hillary Clinton more qualified as research -- or we really are a nation of idiots.
First off, a Harvard professor damn well knows that they have to establish their facts. So when they fail to do that, we know they're just whores.
Weeks ago, Ava and I wrote about the forum (not a debate) in "TV: NBC airs abstract art" and we noted a number of things.
For example, we appear to be the only ones aware that Matt Lauer attempted to impose only one ground rule:
Matt Lauer: Let me ask you something ahead of time that I'll ask Mr. Trump in a half an hour. To the best of your ability tonight, can we talk about your qualities and your qualifications to be commander-in-chief and not use this as an opportunity to attack Mr. Trump, all right? And I'll ask him the exact same thing.
Hillary Clinton: I think that's an exactly right way to proceed.
And yet in the midst of avoiding Iraq, while claiming that she owned her mistake, Hillary got off this:
Now, my opponent was for the war in Iraq. He says he wasn't. You can go back and look at the record. He supported it. He told Howard Stern he supported it. So he supported it before it happened, he supported it as it was happening, and he is on record as supporting it after it happened. I have taken responsibility for my decision.
Matt did not correct her assertion.
So why was he supposed to then bring up a topic that Hillary had used her own time -- and broken the rules -- for?
He wasn't.
There is the forum that aired and there's the lie that's been repeated over and over.
It's also not the moderator's job to fact check a debate.
Nor has there ever been, in real debates (we know America's education system is lacking so let's go slow) the principle that you win a debate by telling the truth.
You win a debate by making the best argument.
It may be one that appeals to facts and reason, it may be one that appeals to emotion, it may be any number of things.
But a moderator is not a fact checker nor was he or she ever intended to be.
It's not your job to be a fact checker.
Nor is it possible.
Politicians lie every time they take a breath.
Correcting a lie would lead to an embarrassing Candy Crowley moment -- remember how she tried to go on CNN after the debate and correct herself -- because she was wrong in what she stated?
It's not the job of the moderator to correct the speaker.
It is their job to get them to focus on the question, to redirect.
Hillary did poorly in the forum -- despite going first, despite calling her opponent a liar.
So now a bunch of little whiney babies are mad. Some are trying to work the refs, some don't know the first thing about a debate.
The Yahoo article quotes Janet Brown ("executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates") stating to CNN over the weekend, "I don't think it's a good idea to get the moderator into essentially serving as the Encyclopedia Britannica. I think it's better for that person to facilitate and to depend on the candidates to basically correct each other as they see fit."
Which is the definition of a debate.
I get it, I do.
Hillary Clinton is lousy in debates.
She comes off high and mighty, she scolds, she nags, she irritates the viewers.
When I was for her in 2008, I saw that in debate after debate.
But I didn't attack the moderators for her faults.
She's also far less trusted in 2016 than she was eight years ago.
So I get her supporters wanting the debates to provider her with a helper.
But that's not how debates work.
Nor should they work that way in this case, where you have two people vying to be president. (I would argue the debates should be opened up to include Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and others -- but that's another argument. However, those wanting Hillary to have a helper should grasp that Gary and Jill would be ripping Donald Trump apart over Iraq.)
These two people are both trying to become president of the United States.
They need to be able to make their case to the American people.
That's not about, "Matt! Matt! Tell America that Donald just lied!"
You're on the stage, Hillary, it's your job to make your case.
Same with Donald.
And the American people will decide whom to support.
I want to add one more thing here.
Donald Trump is not a racist.
He's a clod, he's a fool.
He is and can be racially insensitive.
But he's not a racist.
Yes, there is a difference between being racially insensitive (because you're so limited and stupid) and being racist.
Unlike all the Hillary Newbies, my dislike for Donald didn't begin in 2015.
I've loathed him for years.
But at some point, people need to get honest about what's going on.
Hillary has not been 'harmed' by the press.
They've rarely done their job.
And that's only made all the more clear by their failure to call out President Barack Obama for some of his comments about Trump -- comments that if Bully Boy Bush had made them about Barak in 2008, the world would have exploded in anger.
Not only has a Supreme Court Justice forgotten her place in this election cycle, but so has a sitting president.
I guess that's the natural panic when a weak candidate, a corrupt one like Hillary, is the party's nominee.
But it being a natural panic, doesn't excuse it or excuse the media's complicity in it.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.