After the October 30 Democratic presidential debate, numerous media figures commented that co-moderator Tim Russert had acted as, in the words of The New York Times, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (NY) “third toughest opponent on the stage.” During the debate, Russert asked a total of 30 distinct questions (not including follow-up questions).* Fourteen were either questions directed to Clinton or questions directed to other candidates about Clinton. Many media outlets took note of Russert's focus on Clinton. Russert has received media attention for his conduct toward Clinton in previous debates as well, including criticism following a debate he moderated in 2000, when Clinton was running for Senate against then-Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY).

In writing about the October 30 debate, numerous media figures noted the conduct of the moderators, and Russert's in particular:

• An October 31 New York Times article on the debate reported: “Mrs. Clinton walked into the debate expecting to be the target of attacks but as the night went on, she appeared surprised by the intensity as she was challenged not only by her opponents but by the moderators, Brian Williams and Tim Russert of NBC.” The article later described Russert as “arguably” Clinton's “third toughest opponent on the stage.”
• In an October 31 Washington Post “Media Notes” column, media critic Howard Kurtz wrote: “At times, it seemed like 4 against 1, with Brian [Williams] and Tim [Russert] repeatedly pressing Hillary as well.”
• ABC News senior national correspondent Jake Tapper wrote in an October 31 blog post that “Russert flatly accused her of being duplicitous on Social Security, saying to him and at an AARP-hosted debate that she would not increasing [sic] Social Security taxes, then telling a teacher -- and being overheard by an AP reporter -- that she would consider it. 'Why do you have one public position and one private position?' Russert asked.” Tapper added: “Clinton denied she did, saying -- when pressed on her private conversation with a teacher -- that 'everybody knows what the possibilities are, Tim. Everybody knows that. But I do not advocate it. I do not support it.'”
• Philadelphia Daily News columnist John Baer noted Russert's treatment of Clinton in his October 31 column. Baer wrote: “OK, I ADMIT it. I've got Clinton fatigue. It settled in firmly during last night's Drexel debate as Hillary fended off Barack Obama, John Edwards and Tim Russert on 'voting Republican,' using 'doubletalk,' inching toward war with Iran and more.”
• While live-blogging for the New York Times political blog The Caucus on October 30, reporter Katharine Q. Seelye wrote of Russert's questioning: “Mrs. Clinton is getting a tough grilling tonight from Mr. Russert and she's being very assertive, very adamant, in making her points.”
• In an October 30 entry on the washingtonpost.com blog The Fix, Chris Cillizza wrote: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) spent the first hour of the debate fending off shots from her opponents and parrying pointed questions from the moderators.” He also asserted that Clinton “for the majority of the debate ... acquitted herself well despite having the deck stacked heavily against her. In the first hour, nearly every question and response started and ended with Clinton.”

Several media reports also highlighted Russert's conduct toward Clinton during the previous MSNBC-sponsored Democratic debate, held September 26 in New Hampshire. For example, a September 27 Concord Monitor article on the debate reported that “Clinton found herself in the spotlight for much of the debate, both because of criticism from her opponents and due to tough questioning from Russert. Clinton and Russert sparred several times, notably on the issue of Iran.” Similarly, a September 26 article in The Hill stated: “Aside from 'Meet the Press' host and debate moderator Tim Russert's intense questioning on a number of issues, Clinton faced direct, and on at least one occasion abrasive, criticism from her on-stage rivals.” A September 27 New York Daily News article stated: “Often under attack, as much from tough questions by moderator Tim Russert, Clinton stayed aggressive, even differing with her husband, and what she told the Daily News Editorial Board, on torture.” In a September 27 Hartford Courant article, then-Hartford Courant Washington bureau chief David Lightman wrote of the debate: “New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's seven rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination probably should have simply sat in a circle around the front-runner at Wednesday's debate and thrown darts. ... Even moderator Tim Russert got into the game, asking Clinton whether the country was ready for Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton should she be elected.” Also, while discussing the debate during the September 27 edition of National Public Radio's Morning Edition, national political correspondent Mara Liasson stated that “Clinton herself was clearly a big target last night for her fellow Democrats and for the moderator of the debate, NBC's Tim Russert,” in his questions of Clinton.

Russert received criticism for his questioning of Clinton while moderating the debate between Clinton and Lazio in September 2000. According to a May 23, 2004, Washington Post Magazine article in which Howard Kurtz interviewed Russert on a range of subjects, Kurtz questioned Russert about the Clinton-Lazio debate:

Q. [Kurtz] One controversial moment in your career was in September 2000, when you moderated the debate in the Senate race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Congressman Rick Lazio. You asked if she would apologize for branding her husband's accusers as part of a right-wing conspiracy. You asked, “Do you regret misleading the American people?” That caused quite a stir. Did you go too far on that?

A. [Russert] No.

Q. Absolutely fair game?

A. Oh sure. I mean I believe the question before that, or the question after that, was [when] I showed a commercial that Congressman Lazio had run, which had dummy footage of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They had pictures of Moynihan and Lazio walking down the hall. They had never walked down the hall together; they were superimposed. And I said to him, would he apologize to the people in New York, or would he acknowledge now that that was phony footage in effect. And then I [asked Clinton the question] because I was talking about the whole issue of credibility, [and she] had gone on the “Today” show and said, “This is all part of people who are opposing my husband; it's not true and all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. . .”

I have no problem asking difficult questions of either Democrats, independents or Republicans, and that's a case in point.

Q. On the [Monica] Lewinsky matter, Mark Sommer, a Buffalo News columnist, said you were “like a bull in a china shop.” He said you chose “sensationalism over substance.” He said Russert “embarrassed himself and his profession.” Pretty tough stuff.

A. Yeah, but he wrote an apology or a retraction. [Actually, a clarification.]

Q. Did you call him?

A. I didn't call him. He got his facts wrong in that column in a big way . . . Can you imagine a debate with Hillary Clinton running for the Senate from New York and not talk about her comments?

If Rick Lazio had said that it was a left-wing conspiracy against him, would it not be fair game? . . . I never mentioned Monica Lewinsky; I never mentioned sex; I was talking specifically about Hillary Clinton's comments when she was on the “Today” show. The accusations were false, she said, and they were the result of a vast right-wing conspiracy. So, I mean, it was a perfect --

Q. It was her own words. The question is, should it have been part of the Senate campaign? And your answer is, obviously, yes.

A. Well, of course, just [like] Lazio's credibility in using phony footage. I mean, you have to be evenhanded in these things, and to this day I'm amazed, well, when you say cause a stir, it was largely amongst party activists supporting Hillary Clinton. And I fully expected that . . . You get it from the left and the right, and I think that kind of confirms you're doing a pretty good job.

Contrary to Russert's assertion that he “didn't call [Sommer],” Kurtz wrote the following in a June 21, 2004, column, as The Daily Howler noted:

Tim Russert has told the Buffalo News he regrets an error he made in a recent Washington Post Magazine interview.

Russert had said he never called News reporter Mark Sommer to complain about a negative review of his performance in moderating a Hillary Clinton-Rick Lazio Senate debate in 2000. But Sommer says in an interview that Russert called him twice about the piece and “was furious. . . . I was struck how a guy who basks in the reputation of being a tough reporter can't handle criticism when it applies to himself.”

“I just plain didn't remember it,” Russert says in an interview, adding that he's “been called a lot of things by a lot of people” and doesn't object to criticism. His beef, which had led to a clarification in the News, was Sommer's assertion that “Clinton had already answered similar questions” before Russert asked about her charge that a vast right-wing conspiracy was out to get her husband.

Russert “was correct on a technicality,” says Sommer, in that Clinton hadn't responded to a journalist's question on the subject. But Russert says Sommer mangled the facts and should apologize.

Also, contrary to Russert's assertion in the May 23, 2004, interview that Sommer “wrote an apology or a retraction,” The Buffalo News offered a “clarification” of Sommer's remarks, as Kurtz noted. The full text of the Buffalo News “clarification,” as noted by The Daily Howler, read:

In a Sept. 18 [2000] commentary after the first debate between U.S. Senate candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rick A. Lazio, News Arts Editor Mark Sommer criticized debate moderator Tim Russert for asking Clinton if she regretted “misleading the American people” in a 1998 television interview. In that interview, she blamed criticism of her husband over the Monica S. Lewinsky affair on a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Sommer's commentary asserted that “Clinton had already answered similar questions before.” In fact, Clinton had not been asked that question previously. But she has addressed the issue generally, including making a press statement that she was misled about her husband's affair. The News commentary also stated that Russert has belittled the idea of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” on his NBC “Meet the Press” program. That observation was based on Sommer's impression and interpretation after watching many of those programs. Russert, however, asserts that is not the case and that he never belittled the idea in any way.

Russert's questioning of Clinton during her run for the New York Senate seat was highlighted by other media outlets. For example:

• A September 20, 2000, article in the Times Union of Albany, New York, stated:

Author Gail Sheehy, whose work has been critical of Clinton, said Lazio cannot be faulted for bringing gender politics into the debate. It was, she pointed out Tuesday, moderator Tim Russert of NBC News' ''Meet the Press'' who asked Clinton whether she had misled the public immediately after the scandal broke. Clinton said she did not mislead anyone because, ''I didn't know the truth.''

But Sheehy added Lazio may have hurt himself in lashing out at Clinton after her response.

''I thought the guilt-by-association charge took him over the line,'' said Sheehy, who otherwise described the debate as a ''pretty even smackdown.''

''It's really comparing apples to teapots ... and I don't think he scored with that. People remember it wasn't Hillary Clinton who had an affair -- it was Hillary Clinton who came out of it doing something if not noble, then at least active and worthwhile.''

• A September 17, 2000, Newsday article (subscription required) noted criticism of Russert's questioning during the New York Senate debate:

When NBC moderator Tim Russert asked Hillary Rodham Clinton during Wednesday's Senate debate about her handling of the Monica Lewinsky affair, he opened a door that, oddly, has been largely closed during Clinton's year on the campaign trail.

From impeachment and Lewinsky to commodities trading, firings in the White House travel office, Whitewater, the disappearance and unexplained reappearance of Rose Law Firm billing records, grand jury appearances and fund-raising irregularities, the first lady's role in the “Clinton scandals” has always been in the background, but never at the center of the battle for New York.

As perilous as such a set of stinging jellyfish might be to the ordinary candidate, Clinton has seemed immune. And even as new developments on the scandal front are percolating-the planned release of White House records expected to show overlaps between Clinton's big donors and guests treated to overnights at the White House and Camp David, and a new independent counsel report on Whitewater-the reaction to the Lewinsky question showed why she has sailed along.

Russert was criticized in some quarters for playing excerpts from the 1998 interview in which Clinton blamed the accusations against her husband on a “vast right-wing conspiracy” and asking if she had misled the public. Clinton deflected the question by saying she was misled by her husband and took little heat. Lazio is widely expected to pay a political price, especially among women, for complaining that her actions and response reflected a “pattern” of blaming others for the Clintons' problems.

“I thought the debate was supposed to be about issues in New York,” said Roberta Cooper, 57, of Smithtown, a voter who came to a Lazio event Friday to tell him the exchange about the Lewinsky case had caused her to switch to Clinton's side. “New York State knows it the scandal has nothing to do with the Senate race in New York.”

• In a “Critic's Notebook” published on October 19, 2000, New York Times television critic Caryn James wrote of the presidential debates that year between George W. Bush and Al Gore:

The debates were lackluster, yet the Bush campaign's rejected proposals would have been worse. Imagine those meetings, moderated by Larry King (the king of softball questions) and Tim Russert (whose self-aggrandizement at the Hillary Clinton-Rick Lazio debate made him a performer rather than a moderator.) With Mr. King too cool, Mr. Russert too hot and Mr. [Jim] Lehrer [of PBS] too lukewarm, where is Goldilocks when you need her?

* Media Matters for America counted only discrete questions asked of each candidate. Media Matters used the MSNBC debate transcript. In one instance, the transcript incorrectly indicated that Russert asked a question that Williams had actually asked. Media Matters did not count that question.