I apologize for this being posted so late, but I have been busy with family in town watching the Giants make their way to the World Series!
Watching the debate last week, I was appalled by the way the
moderator behaved. Instead of being a neutral, third party member set to simply
facilitate questioning between the audience and the candidates, Candy Crowley
overstepped her bounds multiple times. She acted like a biased referee in a
wrestling match between two candidates in equal weight categories.
This brings me to my ultimate question of what should the
role of a debate moderator be?
About an hour into the debate, Presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley fact checked Mitt Romney after
the Republican presidential candidate charged that President Obama failed to
call the attack
on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi an "act of terror."
This was the major point in the debate when I went
from thinking she was a fine moderator to suddenly realizing why both the Obama
and Romney teams expressed concerns about her pre-debate. She got in the middle
of two candidates and suddenly put the spotlight on her. In an attempt to
quickly cover up her slip that showed her support for Obama, she admitted to
Romney that the attack wasn’t brought to the public’s attention for 14 days. Too
bad it was just a little too late and the damage had already been done.
While I have no problem with a moderator fact checking
the debate (and in fact, I think they should in order to keep the public
informed), it is not appropriate for the moderator to fact check ONE TIME and
only fact check ONE CANDIDATE. Please, no matter how liberal or how conservative
you may be, each candidate up debating made some false statements. And it was the fact checking of only Mitt
Romney that really made me question her role as a moderator. Was she there to
moderate a debate or personally call Romney out?
Many liberals applauded her, whereas many
conservatives got mad at her and pretty much forced her to issue a statement
regarding the issue. I understand why she did it- she had to move the debate
along for fear that Romney or Obama might start throwing punches- but she
should have thought of a better way to move the debate along. Or, since she
obviously felt she was such an authority figure on the issues, she should have
been prepared to fact check every single thing that either candidate said. She
would have had the chance to personally call out Romney plenty of times and she
wouldn’t have discredited herself as a biased moderator.
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