MICHAEL SMERCONISH: Can I make a point? I would not have asked, I would not have asked questions the way that the CNBC panelists asked some of those questions but I think that anybody interested in this issue should take the time to Google the transcripts of all of the debates and see if there's really a discernible difference. The Fox debate, which was the first of them, first question to Donald Trump, are you part of the war on women? After referencing how he'd referenced fat pigs, dogs, and slobs. To Scott Walker, would you really let a mother die rather than have an abortion? To John Kasich, if you had a son or daughter who was gay or lesbian, how would you explain to them your opposition to same-sex marriage?
BRIAN STELTER: These sound actually tougher. In some way this sounds tougher than CNBC's debate, I think.
SMERCONISH: So you know, it's like we're shocked to find there's gambling at Rick's cafe, Casablanca reference, because of the way CNBC posed those questions. Again, the cartoonish question that John Harwood posed, not something I would have ever said, but not too different from the way Fox's debate went.
BROOKE BALDWIN: But these candidates are also very savvy, in, you know how they don't always answer the questions.
[...]
SMERCONISH: Wait now, now they have a built in excuse. And you saw this on New Day yesterday morning with Carly Fiorina when Alisyn was asking what I thought was an entirely appropriate question about what she'd said about planned parenthood. And now the device is to say I can't believe you're asking me that. You know, that's a media bias question, which is a great deflector of legitimacy sometimes.
