Jim Lehrer for moderator-in-chief!
Did someone slip me a psychedelic mickey last night as I watched the debate? Because I have to say I was shocked to wake up this morning to find people on the right and the left agreeing that Jim Lehrer laid an egg, whereas I found it to be one of the best, most interesting, least infuriating debates in a long time. In fact, at several points, I found myself wishing out loud that all the debates could be moderated by Mr. Lehrer.
So, what exactly was Mr. Lehrer’s grievous sin? HE LET THE DEBATERS DEBATE!!!!! He gave them a few subjects, asked a couple of specific questions, and let Messrs. Obama and Romney go at it. Sure, he didn’t follow the rules you may be familiar with from your high school debate team. But then, neither does the format we have come to expect from our political debates, and which most commentators seem to have longed for last night:
“Each candidate will have 1 minute to sum up decades of thinking on a complex issue, and to squeeze in as many confusing facts and figures as possible; his opponent will then have 30 seconds to deliver a considered response (ditto on the facts and figures); to which the first candidate will only be able to respond if the moderator decides to be generous, or if he can manage to steal some time from his prescribed 1-minute response to the next question.”
Mr. Lehrer didn’t “control the give-and-take and keep candidates to time” [FOX]. He failed to “corral the candidates” [HuffPost]. Exactly. What we ended up with was an actual, real discussion, rather than a cringe-inducing, gaffe-producing sound-bite battle. You can understand why the Obama cheerleading team is fuming, since their candidate clearly didn’t have enough command of anything to hold his own in that kind of discussion. But for the rest of us who care about ideas and enjoy a good, serious argument, what could be better? And what could be a better way for voters to actually get a real sense of who the candidates are?
Thank you. The debates should be about the candidates, not about a showboating or partisan moderator. n nI'd like to see a debate without a moderator, frankly–just an MC who welcomes the audience and announces the result of the coin flip over who starts, and then let the candidates go.
I agree completely. Allowing them to actually debate instead of limiting everything into 30 second sound bites was more substanative. It also demonstrated "O's" inability to develop or communicate a clear line of thought without a teleprompter. I thought the format was excellent compared to what we're usually fed.
Agree fully. I found Lehrer still too intrusive for my taste though. n n
Naomi, I agree completely. Lehrer did an excellent job by trying not to be the center of the debate. He allowed the candidates to mix it up. Unlike many other moderators, we didn't see someone's big fat ego get in the way. And neither did we get one of those typical liberal press questions: Mr. Romney, when did you stop beating up your wife and how can the American people trust you won't do it again?
The Obama people wanted their guy to be "saved by the bell" with a moderator who could firmly cut off debate when he sees the Democrat struggling. Who could blame them for expecting that? We've seen it so often in the past. In fact, Lehrer tried to sort out Obama's incoherence once when he summed up Obama's "balanced approach" to tax revenues and spending cuts. Lehrer is as reliably liberal as the next member of the MSM, and I'm sure he would have liked to deal Obama an ace here and there, but he's past his prime. However his doddering non-interference produced the welcome result that this was one of the most illuminating and interesting presidential debates in memory.
Naomi, that 'psychedelic mickey' is the relativist deconstruction that underlies the intellectual Left. Their 'journalists' are probably the worst in that they believe that they create reality through their own lens of perception … they are the message.
Lehrer certainly looked ineffectual, as the candidates interrupted him almost at will. But the fact that he ended up acting as timekeeper rather than referee was terrific, and the format, which let the candidates decide where they wanted to take their arguments, is the format I hope they stick with.
Obama failed because he couldn't operate as if it were a speech. He couldn't control every discussion every narrative. Once you see that Obama can't actually engage in a give and take and argue the merits of his ideas AS IDEAS on their own, the whole puppet show falls apart.
Lehrer did great.
Yes I agree, I thought Lehrer did fine and I actually thought both candidates did fine in terms of keeping the discussion going, keeping things civil, getting their ideas out, etc. n nLehrer was much, much better than whoever that woman was recently (I guess during the republican primaries, I really don't remember) who went on, and on, and on, and on with her questions. As though the audience was tuned in to hear what SHE had to say about things. Ridiculous.
The MSM is freaking out on Lehrer because he was supposed to protect Obama from tough questions and rebuttals, and savage Romney, attacking him from the side. And he didn't do the job.
I am not a big fan of Jim Lehrer but I thought that he did a good job as moderator. The left is mad because he wouldn't carry Obama's water last night.
Jim Lehrah, as Rush calls him, was asking questions in such a way as to prompt Obama's response. How can you defend such partisan participation? He also allowed Obama to talk longer than Mitt by somewhere between 4 and 10 minutes.
Like a scorpion, the mass media stung itself while committing treason against the American people. Absolute bias against Romney. Romney jumped at the first opportunity given to him to show who he really is rather than what the Demo claim him to be. n
Jim Lehrer did a great job in ensuring viewers got maximum informaton. I wish he could moderate all the remaining debates. Mr. Lehrer knows that the moderator is not the star of a debate; he or she is the facilitator.
I agree one million percent entirely with Naomi Decter. Jim Lehrer is what we VOTERS have been demanding of a debate moderator ALWAYS – just get out of the way and be as unobtrusive as possible, let the candidates show us themselves without shielding or protecting them, or trying to trip them, either way. n"Just the Facts, Please, Ma'am!" n nJim was PERFECT!
I also liked it because it actually was a debate, and not just the candidates getting questions side by side. I liked that the time wasn't rationed, like 3 minute answer, 1 minute response