Sure sign that President Obama’s media cheerleaders are worried about his upcoming debate performance? Four days before the first debate, Gwen Ifill of PBS has an op-ed in The Washington Post downplaying the importance of . . . debates. Or, as she puts it, “debunk[ing] five myths about presidential debates.”
Myth Number One: “Voters use debates to decide.”
As Ms. Ifill explains, “Gallup polls going back decades show precious little shift in established voter trends before and after debates.”
Her article consists largely of some pretty pallid pabulum, the tired clichés you might expect from a public television host whose expertise on the subject arises from her experience as moderator of the 2004 and 2008 vice presidential debates. The moderator shouldn’t argue with the debaters, for example; the candidates don’t get to approve questions in advance; the best zinger doesn’t necessarily win a debate. Yada yada yada. Her point about the impact on voters of debates isn’t exactly hot news, either. But timing is everything, isn’t it?
So, given that we all know that Mr. Obama doesn’t exactly shine without his teleprompter, and that Mr. Romney is pretty good in a debate, would it be too cynical to suggest that Ms. Ifill and The Post are engaging in a bit of preemptive self-comforting?
One affirmative action hire supporting another. Are we surprised? n nBoth have been manifestly incompetent. One matters, the other doesn't.
So both Ifill and Obama are just undeserving beneficiaries of "affirmative action" then? Funny how often racial issues pop up whenever supposedly color-blind Republicans discuss politics… n nAnd you guys wonder why 90%+ of African Americans vote Democrat…the conservative hostility towards racial/sexual minorities is obvious.
you mean that Gwen Ifill, who wrote a book–I'm sorry, a hagiography–of Barack Obama, might be trying to spin for her guy? I am shocked, shocked to hear that. n n
I find Gwen's lack of faith disturbing. Chris Balloonhead Matthews has ALREADY declared Obama's performance a brilliant combination of Cicero, the Sermon on the Mount and Jay-Z.
What I worry about in the debates is that they take turns speaking first and last on a question, and how it will look if Romney has to keep going back to the previous question to explain an Obama lie? Maybe it will look like Obama keeps telling lies and Romney has to correct him (won't let him get away with it) or it could come off negatively like some know-it-all, which people don't like, even if he is right. Maybe Obama plans on only speaking in broad generalities and blaming Bush, which would be hard to attack without defending Bush?? Obama and his people so totally lack integrity, it's hard to trust they don't have some nasty trick up their sleeve — besides the whole of the MSM trying to convince everyone Obama won no matter what, day after day afterward.
This loathsome democrat party operative certainly was froathing at the bit to oversee a Presidential debate prior to her lierary fellating of The Jug Eared Marxist.
After Ms. Ifill's hagiographic Obama book, an honest media outlet would have barred her from hosting a political program. Not PBS. Just another reason it deserve s to be entirely defunded.