Posted on 10/01/2004 12:31:54 PM PDT by yoe
PBS host Jim Lehrer was challenged Friday morning on claims that he went easy on Sen. John Kerry during Thursday night's presidential debate, while tossing verbal hand grenades in President Bush's direction designed to keep him on the defensive.
PBS host Jim Lehrer was challenged Friday morning on claims that he went easy on Sen. John Kerry during Thursday night's presidential debate, while tossing verbal hand grenades in President Bush's direction designed to keep him on the defensive.
"I don't know what in the world you're talking about," Lehrer told radio host Don Imus, in his only post-debate interview.
"I would argue that my questions were right down the middle. There were some hardball questions for each candidate. There were some softball questions for each candidate. But for the most part they were just terrific."
The bias complaint, said Lehrer, was more of a commentary on his critics than a valid criticism of his own debate performance.
Still, some observers noted that Lehrer's questions largely focused on negative aspects of Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq - while avoiding Sen. Kerry's waffling on the issue, not to mention the top Democrat's long record of opposing measures to strengthen U.S. intelligence and national security.
At one point Lehrer claimed that over ten thousand U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iraq, before quickly revising that number to 1,052.
At the end of the debate, the PBS anchorman shook Sen. Kerry's hand - with some debate watchers claiming he gave the top Democrat a knowing wink.
In 1999, the president of Lehrer's network had to resign after admitting that 53 PBS affiliates had been sharing their donor lists with the Democratic National Committee for years.
In 1997, then-White House aide George Stephanopoulos revealed that President Clinton's reelection team thought it was a major coup when Lehrer was chosen to host one of the presidential debates, boasting that "our moderator" had been picked.
Lehrer Stacks Deck Against Bush ---- http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/30/223850.shtml
That's Why!
How is it on that high horse?
That's exactly what I've been saying.
The GOP debate planners in 2008 ought to do a better job of picking the moderators.
Right it did sound like it could have been intentional or at least unconsciously said by Lehrer........that number is awfully hard to MISREAD -- especially for a guy like Lehrer who has been a news man for so long!
Everyone who is familiar with the Iraq news knows that we just passed 1000 dead ........... NOT 10,000!
Lehrer is an old media hack who is only a few degrees less harmful than jerks like Dan Blather.
Is "the Twins" a reference to some athletic group? (I'm in to books, piano and sewing and know/care nothing about sports.) If so, "the next game" played by overpaid Neanderthals isn't quite as important as who will be running our country and commanding our troops.
Jim Lehrer - Not to be trusted.
not biased????
Listening to Michael Savage now.
He's firmly on the side of Lehrer's questioning being biased last night.
Saying Lehrer was throwing verbal hand grenades at the President.
Saying the sumo match was lost at the outset because of the way Kerry shook hands, holding on to the President's hand a bit too long, as a way of showing power.
Kerry's aggressive stance at the beginning threw GWB off, Savage saying.
He thinks there's a Judas on Bush's staff, agreeing to have Lehrer, the baggy-eyed Bolshevik, as the moderator, and also letting Bush go to Florida to visit hurricane victims prior to this debate.
Saying there's someone on the staff who's not working in Bush's best interests (paraphrase).
I agree. Kerry had the questions a few days before the debate. His answers were memorized, timed. As someone else pointed out, nobody finishes under the time constraint in short, succinct answers all the time. Kerry did, and he knew the question of home security would come up 'later on'. Sure, he had the questions ahead of time. I hope Karl and Karen are replaying the video and figuring out biased economic questions likely to be put to GW. Next Tuesday, Cheney will hand Edwards the silver-tongued one, his lunch.
Yes a subtle misstatement....some call it subliminal. What better way to put that horrific number in front of the voting public?
Of course the questions were designed to attack the President. I also think Kerry had scripted responses to them because they were shared with his campaign. They think we are all stupid out here, and maybe some of us are.
I thought so too, until I read the transcript. He did a better job at pointing out Kerry's hypocrisy than I thought he did.
Oh hello. If you are a professional book reader, you should read every word precisely. If you want to call yourself a debate moderator in the most important election of the last 100 years.....same goes.....especially when you are counting deaths of our brave soldiers.
Really? I didn't know that. I observed it and thought it looked stupid. Still do.
Savage said he himself is an expert at body language, and that's how to interpret what happened.
OK. Not being an expert at body language myself, I thought it looked stupid. :o)
So what did Savage say about Pres Bush's body language of breaking the handclasp and walking away?
Well, Savage thought the match was over at that point, because Kerry already had power over Bush by then.
I just thought it looked weird too. Or stupid as you said.
But I guess if you look at the meaning behind body language, then there is more to it than meets the eye.
Pinging to another thread, very interesting. Apologies if you have seen it already, but this could certainly explain some of what was going on last night.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1232266/posts
posted by huac
Lehrer's Bias in Presidential Debate- note the novel he wrote on this subject
"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."
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