Debate moderators
October 01, 2008 9:10 am ET by Jamison Foser
The right wing is in a frenzy about the fact that Gwen Ifill is working on a book about "emerging young African American politicians," which supposedly means she cannot be neutral during the VP debate she is moderating tomorrow night. Since the right wing is in a frenzy, we can be pretty sure the establishment media is about to join in.
Two things to keep in mind:
1) The October 7 presidential debate will be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw, who currently serves as NBC's liaison to the McCain campaign -- while spreading pro-McCain misinformation on Meet the Press. In fact, the McCain campaign hand-picked Tom Brokaw to moderate the October 7 debate:
Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates -- until his name was invoked.
"One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, 'If it's an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won't go,' " Mr. Brokaw said. "My name came up, and they said, 'Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw.' "
2) CBS' Bob Schieffer moderated one of the 2004 debates, despite the fact that he is a longtime friend of George W. Bush who had previously acknowledged that his personal relationship with Bush made it difficult to cover him. Schieffer's brother was a business partner of Bush's before Bush became president -- and Bush made him an ambassador.
UPDATE: At the Huffington Post, Judd Legum notes that the Associated Press reported that Ifill was writing the book weeks before the McCain campaign agreed to her moderating the debate.
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True to form, Joe Scarborough (with Mike Barnicle's agreement) expressed his outrage that Iffil is moderating due to this pro-Obama biased book. As an example, Scarborough said if Lehrer had written a Bush book, Lehrer would have ben excoriated by the liberal media.
As stupid as Joe Scarborough acts, I'd be surprised if he has even RAED a book in the past five years.......
From the washington post . . .
Why is this paragraph even in the article:
On the World Net site, the "Deal of the Day" is a $4.95 offer for what is described as the "Obama blockbuster: 'Anatomy of Deceit.'" The Web site says the book "reveals" that "his brand of change is a hostile attack on the Judeo-Christian values and freedoms most Americans hold dear."
It is in the middle of this article:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/01/ifills_book_is_no_secret.html
it is a non-sequitur -worse than that - it is an attack. I mean come on . . .
The right wing is in a frenzy about the fact that Gwen Ifill is working on a book about "emerging young African American politicians," which supposedly means she cannot be neutral
during the VP debate she is moderating tomorrow night.
Are you out of your mind?
Below is a Doubleday description of Ifill's book:
In THE BREAKTHROUGH, veteran journalist Gwen Ifill surveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on the impact of Barack Obama's stunning presidential campaign and
introducing the emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power.
Of course she can’t be fair.
This is flat-out dishonesty MMFA.
So if you write a book about someone, then you will definitely will treat them favorably?
1) Obama is not in the debate. She has no way of making him look good.
2) Ifill is a woman. Maybe according to such identity politics, she'll shill for Palin.
3) According to this logic, then those who have written books about Obama will automatically be biased in his favor, like the guy who wrote "Obama Nation".
I suppose in the conservative world, where no book can be written that lays out history, but rather must be an attack, it cannot be comprehended that someone would write a book laying out history.