http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh110207.shtmlWITHOUT PRECEDENT! This always happens, the pundits have said. As always, their statement is false:
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2007
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Chronology makes Matt’s post remarkable. It follows, by only two days, one of the most remarkable presidential debates in our history. No candidate has ever been savaged by moderators as Clinton was savaged on Tuesday (details below); nothing even remotely resembling that debate has ever been staged. But as they think about the guy who staged it, Waldman and Yglesias don’t even raise the question of partisan animus. If you’re a liberal, and you read their work, you aren’t told this might be a question.
In our view, Russert, Matthews and Williams have long been a partisan wrecking crew. Their debates have been astounding all year long; we have gone to substantial length to examine the way they have shaped them. Beyond that, Russert’s “problems” were quite apparent in Campaign 2000—the Event That Must Never Be Discussed—and Matthews was simply astounding. For ourselves, we can’t begin to understand what keeps liberal writers from noticing this. But it’s astounding to see the way they have to be pushed, dragged and hauled toward the task of observing what’s real.
Time passes slowly up here in the mountains! Eight years after the trashing of Gore, some of us have managed to say that what happened may not have been kosher. (Apparent rule: Once you win the Nobel Peace Prize, career liberal writers will start to defend you!) But even now, these writers can’t see the partisan problems displayed by Jack Welch’s sick network. Let’s say it again: This group was hand-picked by a powerful conservative Republican, then turned loose to savage the Clintons and Gore. But so what? Even after Tuesday’s astonishment, the liberal world still can’t digest it.
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At MSNBC, they’re happy to accept the idea that the other candidates ganged up on Clinton. But of course, it all started with the two hosts. Has there ever been a debate where one candidate’s character was hammered this way? In the evening’s opening question, the pattern was clearly established. Obama was invited by Williams to bang away. Please kill the pig, Williams said:
QUESTION 1, WILLIAMS (10/30/07): Senator Obama, we’ll begin with you. You gave an interview to the New York Times, over the weekend, pledging in it to be more aggressive, to be tougher in your campaign against your chief rival for the nomination, the leader among Democrats so far, Senator Clinton, who is here next to you tonight. To that end, Senator, you said that Senator Clinton was trying to sound Republican, trying to vote Republican on national security issues. And that was, quote, “bad for the country and ultimately bad for the Democrats.” That is a strong charge, as you’re aware. Specifically, what are the issues where you, Senator Obama, and Senator Clinton have differed, where you think she has sounded or voted like a Republican?
Obama had made “a strong charge”—and he was asked to repeat it. His answer was exceptionally vague, as we’ll see below. But nothing he said about Clinton was challenged, and we moved on to Question 2:
QUESTION 2, RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, you issued a press release, your campaign, and the headline is “Edwards to Clinton: American people deserve the truth, not more double-talk on Iran.”What double-talk are you suggesting that Senator Clinton has been engaging in on Iran?
In his answer, Edwards made a baldly false statement about Clinton (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/107). But so what? Russert seemed happy to move right along. Having invited Obama and Edwards to bash Clinton, he now quoted a third, absent party who seemed to be doing the same:
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