Barack Obama and Candy Crowley vs. Mitt Romney and the American People

Conservatives spend a lot of time talking about bias in the media.  This may sound like sour grapes to the uninformed, but it is important for setting things in context, as the liberal media is as much an adversary to conservatism as is any Democrat politician.  In fact, the biggest difference between liberal journalists, Democrat politicians, and Hollywood celebrities, is that the politicians and the celebrities have the guts to tell us flat out who they are and what they believe.  Journalists don’t have even that much integrity.

It’s a sad truth that the duty of moderating presidential debates traditionally falls on journalists, and so we recognize going in that the “impartial arbitrator” is going to be working on behalf of the Democrat; the only real question is to what extent.  Jim Lehrer’s role in the first debate mostly amounted to guiding Obama toward the answers he thought he should go with, what would be known in court as “leading the witness.”  Martha Raddatz was much more blatant in the vice presidential debate, routinely interrupting Paul Ryan in the middle of his answers and giving Joe Biden more time to speak.

Then, there was Candy Crowley in the second presidential debate.  Crowley has a long history as a Democrat partisan operative, and immediately opined, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the selection of Paul Ryan as a running mate was “suicidal” for Mitt Romney’s campaign.  However, this did not stop Crowley from securing a position as moderator, since no one else in the mainstream media cares very much for Ryan, either.

Crowley’s partisanship prior to the debate has been so blatant that many–even on the conservative side–suggested she might actually put up a false front of fairness to prove her detractors wrong and elevate her credibility as an analyst.  Sadly, she did no such thing.  Recognizing the debate could make or break Obama’s chances, Crowley went all-in for the president, completely abandoning any pretense of fairness and doing everything she could to bring him an advantage.

Before the debate, Crowley told us she would take on a proactive role in the process and would not be “a fly on the wall.”  In this instance, she was honest.  Crowley was not a fly on the wall; she was more like the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Throughout the evening, Crowley did everything she could to aid Obama.  She allowed the president to have the last word on nearly every subject, enabled him in interrupting his challenger, and silenced the challenger when Romney tried to push for the same treatment.  Crowley–who had the power of selecting which questions would be asked by the audience–purposefully selected questions which were seen to favor Barack Obama, and even went so far as to insert herself into the debate and argue with Mitt Romney, clearly violating the description of her official duties.

Crowley was not a referee last night.  She wasn’t even a cheerleader.  In effect, she was a full scale teammate for Barack Obama.  She was blocking Romney’s message, intercepting his points, and passing the ball to Obama to move his positions forward.

A full transcript of the debate would be necessary to recount all of Crowley’s transgressions, but two major ones stand out.  First, Crowley interjected herself into the argument between Romney and Obama when Obama claimed to have recognized the incident in Libya as a terrorist attack and to have immediately addressed it as such.  Anyone who has followed the scandalous aftermath of the attack knows that Obama blamed the incident on an anti-Islamic video rather than terrorism, and that the administration held to this version of events for more than two weeks.  When Romney called Obama on his lie, Crowley leapt to Obama’s defense and accused Romney of having his facts wrong.  She has since admitted that Romney was correct, but only after the debate was over and her unprecedented attempt at sabotaging Romney had served its purpose.

Also notable was the discussion on assault weapons and the Second Amendment.  The subject of such deadly weapons in the hands of criminals provided Romney with the perfect opening to point out the Obama administration’s disastrous Fast & Furious program which provided weapons to Mexican drug cartels which were then used to kill both Mexican and American citizens.  Crowley interrupted Romney’s argument and accused him of diverting the question onto an unrelated subject.  She then turned the floor over to Obama for a rebuttal and allowed him a meandering and totally unrelated monologue about “fairness and equality” which had absolutely nothing to do with assault weapons whatsoever.  The exchange underlined the double-standard which ran throughout the debate.

Romney’s relatively strong performance was a reflection of his own ability to overcome adversity, as well as the hideous record of the Obama administration; fitting, as he will need the former to overcome the latter if he is elected.  While Obama was given free reign to lie throughout the entire debacle, Romney stuck to the facts and fought an effective battle on two fronts.  The outcome was not a blowout debate as we saw two weeks earlier, but instead a contest reliant upon the audience’s ability to distinguish truth from lies and fantasy from reality.  The next few days and weeks will show us whether or not truth won out.

Original article: Barack Obama and Candy Crowley vs. Mitt Romney and the American People

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