Posted on 09/30/2004 11:07:31 PM PDT by huac
It probably just my inherent VRWC paranoia, but it seems as though Lehrer might have had an agenda in his questions. Numerous questions to President Bush were phrased in such a way as to put him on the defensive, requiring him to explain how he would correct what Lehrer implies are previous mistakes. Conversely, most of Kerry's questions were soft balls designed to let him reitrate his new and improved (and presumably final and solid) campaign talking points. I guess Kerry's two decades of Senate votes on matters effecting foreign affairs were not deemed germane to tonight's discussion of foreign affairs. I'm sure there will be much discussion among the pajamaed (sic?- hell, I don't even know if this is a word-but it should be) hoi polloi regarding this issue. What's intersting is a novel that Lehrer wrote a few years back. Here's an excerpt: "Taking journalistic activism to unprecedented new heights, the media figures at the heart of this ingratiating post-Clinton political satire overtly change the course of a presidential election. At Williamsburg, Va., a few weeks before election day, Bible-quoting, media-savvy Republican David Donald Meredith will debate an all-but-defeated Democratic challenger. But newspaperman Michael J. Howley, the debate moderator, and the panel of questioning journalists so fear the consequences of Meredith's impending presidency that they conspire to ruin him by dispensing with the set debate format and ambushing Meredith with damning, unpublished documents in Howley's possession." From the novel "The Last Debate: A Novel of Politics and Journalism, by tonights moderater, Jim Lehrer. Hmm, a cabal of heroic Lefty, err, liberal activists, I mean journalists, go after a Bible-quoting Republican incumbent to in order to save their floundering Democratic challenger. You don't think...no. Of course not. After all, this was just a work of fiction. I mean really, a Left leaning media. How absurd!
BINGO!
Newsmax picked up on it, but so far they are the only ones I noticed:
Lehrer Stacks Deck Against Bush
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1232043/posts
Here is the transcript of the debate:
http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=71504
All questions to Kerry were openings to give him a chance to expound on his position and attack Bush. All questions to Bush were attacks and accusations.
Lehrer is a biased commie scumball like Rather imo.
Check out the above FairOpinions links. I think most fair-minded people will disagree with your assessment...
Kerry was tipped off to the questions Kerry was much to calm and confident this my friends was a set up!
I just read the transcript and what an eye opener that is. Just reading the words that the President spoke gives me a whole new perspective on the debate! He did a great job! I hate to say this, but after reading this, I am convinced Kerry knew the questions ahead of time. His answers were too scripted not to have known what was going to be asked. I didn't notice it during the debate, perhaps because I was concentrating too much on his behavior.
I think that GW and his team set up Kerry by deciding to let Kerry just go for it during the first 2/3's of debate #1. They figured that Kerry had seen the questions and was ready to ramble at full speed. So they had GW stand back and let Kerry do his normal thing, unchecked with the help of the liberal moderator.
The Republicans have fact checkers vetting every lie, every Rathering, every answer, every response and utterance that Kerry made tonight in the first debate.
We will see many of those answers, responses, and utternances in hard hitting ads for our side.
This will set the stage for debates 2 and 3. If Kerry repeats himself re bad answers, responses and utterances in debate #2, he will have defeated himself with his own mouth. Kerry's responses will become great ads for GW.
They set Kerry up in Debate #1 by having GW set back, listen and allowing Kerry to Rather to America.
Why do you post without regard to punctuation? You only discredit yourself by your presumptiousness.
Lehrer got his start in the same time and place as Rather and as a liberal reporter for a liberal Texas paper. But he is not nuts like Rather.
I'll say it again, Brian Lamb should be the moderator for all of the debates.
I hope you are right. Unfortunately, I fear that, while the Republicans hve a strategy, the game is fixed. As Mr. Lehrer demonstrated, it's easy for the moderator to subtley control the process. The Left is so firmly entrenched in the MSM that I doubt President Bush will get a fair shot.
FYI ping
Lets not forget the side he is on and how deadly serious they are to win.
Numerous questions to President Bush were phrased in such a way as to put him on the defensive, requiring him to explain how he would correct what Lehrer implies are previous mistakes.
Conversely, most of Kerry's questions were soft balls designed to let him reitrate his new and improved (and presumably final and solid) campaign talking points.
I guess Kerry's two decades of Senate votes on matters effecting foreign affairs were not deemed germane to tonight's discussion of foreign affairs. I'm sure there will be much discussion among the pajamaed (sic?- hell, I don't even know if this is a word-but it should be) hoi polloi regarding this issue.
What's intersting is a novel that Lehrer wrote a few years back. Here's an excerpt: "Taking journalistic activism to unprecedented new heights, the media figures at the heart of this ingratiating post-Clinton political satire overtly change the course of a presidential election. At Williamsburg, Va., a few weeks before election day, Bible-quoting, media-savvy Republican David Donald Meredith will debate an all-but-defeated Democratic challenger. But newspaperman Michael J. Howley, the debate moderator, and the panel of questioning journalists so fear the consequences of Meredith's impending presidency that they conspire to ruin him by dispensing with the set debate format and ambushing Meredith with damning, unpublished documents in Howley's possession." From the novel "The Last Debate: A Novel of Politics and Journalism, by tonights moderater, Jim Lehrer.
Hmm, a cabal of heroic Lefty, err, liberal activists, I mean journalists, go after a Bible-quoting Republican incumbent to in order to save their floundering Democratic challenger. You don't think...no. Of course not.
After all, this was just a work of fiction. I mean really, a Left leaning media. How absurd!
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