Posted on 05/08/2007 1:40:50 PM PDT by Gelato
Last Thursday, MSNBC aired the first Republican presidential debate of the season, hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
The 90-minute program
Or so the media would have us believe.
Anointed the winner by virtual media consensus was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Among media pundits' reasons for choosing Romney: he came off as "presidential," "intelligent," and "articulate"
Said a writer at National Review Online: "Romney appeared to be the smartest kid in the class."
The writer suggested Romney "won the debate" in part by virtue of "his genial laugh, his upbeat persona, his non-arrogant confidence, [and] his complete mastery of head, body, and hand motion."
A veteran political insider and commentator added, "The statuesque Mr. Romney had a certain good-natured command, a presidential voice, a surprising wiliness. . . . [I]n the mysterious way that some people seem to dominate, he dominated."
A politico.com pundit said Romney "achieved almost everything he wanted to achieve. . . . He looked and sounded presidential. . . . Romney was a man with a plan. He knew what points he wanted to make and he made them."
Favoritism and ineptitude
There's just one problem with such superficial analysis by people who should know better: With the exception of John McCain
That's why he "dominated."
Consider this:
Romney's total allotted time
He had four minutes more than Tom Tancredo, Jim Gilmore, and Ron Paul; five minutes more than Mike Huckabee and Duncan Hunter; and six minutes more than Tommy Thompson.
To put this into clear perspective, consider that Romney had roughly twice the speaking time of five of the ten presidential hopefuls.
Of course he "won." He was given opportunities the others weren't given (other than McCain, who delivered a "mixed" performance, according to analysts, who felt he went "overboard" and acted "creaky").
The reason for such blatant favoritism and ineptitude? Moderator Chris Matthews. Matthews carried on a running dialogue with Romney throughout the evening
Matthews was curt, abrupt, and oblivious to others down the line, while he repeatedly deferred to Romney. Since the debate was whatever Matthews defined it to be
Meanwhile, the last person in line, Tom Tancredo, was all but ignored during the initial proceedings of the debate. This disadvantage may explain his discomfort with the whole affair until he later caught his stride. One of the most memorable moments came when Tancredo wanted to finish his point in the same manner that Romney had been permitted to do all evening, and Matthews sharply and disrespectfully cut him off.
Frontrunners favored in questioning
It's possible that Matthews simply lost track of time as he bantered with Romney. But when it came to asking questions, he revealed a deliberate effort to give the media-promoted big names more chances to speak than the others, regardless of the time factor.
Rather than offer all comers a reasonably equal opportunity to respond to questioning, Matthews and his associates directed most of their questions to Romney, McCain, and Giuliani
Consider this:
John McCain, who was asked more questions than anyone else, was asked more than twice as many questions as Duncan Hunter and Tommy Thompson. He faired almost as well in relation to Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Jim Gilmore
Like McCain, Romney and Giuliani also bested the lesser names in opportunities to speak, by nearly the same margin as McCain.
The whole affair was an affront to simple fairness and the intelligence of the electorate. Didn't MSNBC and Matthews think anyone would notice how fraudulent the program was?
Stupid questions
Let's not forget the most glaring deficiency of the debate: the questions themselves. Rather than pose issues of serious significance, Matthews and company asked things like the following:
Interestingly, because Romney was given extra time and opportunity throughout the debate, he was able to turn such irrelevant questions to his advantage.
When asked the question about "disliking" America, he jumped at the chance to give a seemingly-practiced patriotic speech, rather than answer the inane query. In so doing, he invoked images of "rolling mountains and hills and streams and great cities," called the American people the greatest in the world, couched everything in terms of Ronald Reagan, and ended by saying to Nancy, "Thank you, Mrs. Reagan, for opening up this place in his memory for us."
In other words, the question gave him carte blanche.
The next morning, Chris Matthews appeared on the Today show to discuss his thoughts on the debate. He offered this assessment:
"I think [Romney] will go up in the polls. . . . So it [was] probably a lucky night for Romney, altogether."
Data compiled by RenewAmerica staff
Minutes allowed to speak:
Number of times allowed to speak:
That would be fair to everyone and make each candidate responsible for their own use of air-time. But since it involves fairness and personal responsibility, the leftist media probably wouldn't consider this method.
In the interest of fairness, I contacted RenewAmerica last night and asked them to check their facts, after FReepers pointed out some discrepancies in the numbers. Here's the corrected version.
Can you say: "man-crush"?
Interesting idea. I like that.
jealousy and cry baby alert!!!!
That’s with the moderator. I checked it myself. LOL
More like “conservatives, watch out for Democrat Media bias Alert.”
“Anointed the winner by virtual media consensus was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.”
Fair or not, he was given a lot of time to screw up. He didn’t. He’s the winner. I do believe he’d get whipped head to head with a real conservative, but the ptb aren’t going to allow that to happen.
Of course, virtually nothing he had to say bore any resemblance to his record as Governor of Taxachusetts.
“Of course, virtually nothing he had to say bore any resemblance to his record as Governor of Taxachusetts”
From what I can tell, you are largely correct.
Thank God at least us here know all about that.
They were alotted a certain amount of time to respond but some apparently did not plan adequately and use all of their time.
Anyway, in all fairness, many didn't have much to say or were stumbling or stammering (Tancredo/Rudy/Thompson). It's not Mitt's fault.
In my view, Hunter and Romney came off sounding the best. On one hand, Mitt's answers were longer, more detailed and interesting enough that he didn't get cut off by Matthews because the way Mitt spoke made one want to hear the answer.
On the other hand, Hunter may have gotten less time, yet he also answered very well, but in a shorter, more succinct way. His answer about what America does right and wrong, didn't take much time. But, it was excellent!
So this whole argument regarding time is kind of silly and sounds like sour grapes.
It's not how much time you get; it's what you do with it that counts.
I thought of another stupid question. Matthews asked Tommy Thompson whether an employer should be able to fire an employee because the employee is gay. Congress has passed anti-discrimination laws. If an employer wanted to fire someone, for that reason, the employer could be sued for millions of dollars, unless all anti-discrination laws are repealed, which will never happen.
Granted, Hunter did well with succinct answers.
Romney required more time after he failed to give direct answers to simple questions. It took two follow-ups before Mitt admitted he doesn’t oppose embryonic stem cell research.
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