Reason #41 to Defeat Barack Obama: Tag-team Debate
A
common theme in “professional wrestling” is the tag-team event, where
the crowd’s favorite duo, exhausted from the fight, helps each other out
just when it seems one wrestler is completely spent and can’t go on.
Infused with new energy after the “tag,” the team goes on to win. Fans
love it.
On Tuesday night, we saw another tag-team event. Barack Obama, in the process of being pummeled in the ring by his opponent, Mitt Romney, was challenged with yet another question he couldn’t answer – this time on Libya. Obama sat in his chair, almost non-responsive to Romney’s challenge, when Obama’s tag-team partner, debate moderator Candy Crowley from CNN, threw him a lifeline.
Crowley – whose role as a moderator supposedly makes her a “neutral” party – interjected to take Obama’s side just as a point was being disputed between the two debaters. She told Romney and a TV audience of millions that Obama was correct.
Never mind that what the president had said and what he meant is still open to widely differing interpretations. Or that Crowley later said Romney himself was correct “in the main.”
What’s important is that this most extraordinary of events – the direct interference in a debate on behalf of one of the candidates – is unprecedented in anyone’s memory, and adds even more evidence to those who say the media is completely in the tank for Obama in this election.
Obama latched on to Crowley’s lifeline the way any drowning man would. He asked: “Can you say that a little louder, Candy?” as some in the audience cheered her words. Like the fresh tag-team wrestler who jumps in the ring to save an exhausted teammate, Crowley had the president’s back.
Before Crowley’s unprofessional interference in the debate, Obama was being battered around pretty good by Romney. Obama avoided directly answering several questions posed by audience members and by his opponent. But the “moderator” seemed to be doing her best to even things out. By one count, she interrupted Romney 28 times and Obama only 9. She “corrected” Romney on the Libya question but said nothing when Obama falsely asserted that Planned Parenthood does mammograms (which it does not), and thus, deserves taxpayer funding.
The morning after the debate, CNN cable news went to town on Romney. In the 7 a.m. Eastern Time hour, host Soledad O’Brien showed some clips of Romney not completely answering a question, but not a single clip of the many, many such instances Obama ducked a question from an audience member or the moderator. When guest and Romney supporter former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu tried to inform O’Brien that the president had made contradictory statements on Libya in the Rose Garden statement that was the subject of the previous day’s debate, O’Brien denied and mocked his claim. It came out later that Sununu was correct.
We’ve written before how the media has been a cheerleader for Obama in this election and last (see Reason #25: “A Media that’s Part of Team Obama” at www.54Reasons.com), but for a debate moderator to actively enter the argument on behalf of one of the candidates raises the question of bias to a new level we haven’t seen before.
Among National Right to Life’s talented staff is a former national Catholic high school debate champion, our State Legislative Director Mary Balch. I asked Mary if she could even envision a situation where one of her debate judges or moderators would ever have interjected themselves by stating a fact or opinion in a competitive debate where they were supposed to be the neutral party.
“I can’t think of anything that would have mortified us more,” Mrs. Balch said. “As debaters, we were a pretty verbose bunch, but that would have been so over the top and inappropriate that I think it’s the one thing that could have silenced every one of us!”
Of course, much of the media doesn’t care about what’s “appropriate” or “fair.” The vast majority of them want to see Obama elected to a second term.
The only way we’re going to prevent that is to sidestep the media and appeal directly to the people who can be persuaded to vote for the pro-life team of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. The National Right to Life Victory Fund has proven methods of getting out the pro-life vote, but we need your help to maximize our efforts in these last 20 days.
National Right to Life will account for some 10 million pieces of mail and literature that explain where the candidates stand on the life issues. We’re close enough to the election that we’re not planning additional mailings, but we can buy more hard-hitting radio ads until the week before the election and get-out-the-vote phone calls right up until the day of the election itself!
That means your gift now to the National Right to Life Victory Fund can make a huge difference and help us reach potentially thousands more voters!
Please help us maximize the pro-life voice speaking for unborn children in the next 20 days and please add your generous contribution to that of other Americans who want an America that is safe for the unborn. Thank you!
On Tuesday night, we saw another tag-team event. Barack Obama, in the process of being pummeled in the ring by his opponent, Mitt Romney, was challenged with yet another question he couldn’t answer – this time on Libya. Obama sat in his chair, almost non-responsive to Romney’s challenge, when Obama’s tag-team partner, debate moderator Candy Crowley from CNN, threw him a lifeline.
Crowley – whose role as a moderator supposedly makes her a “neutral” party – interjected to take Obama’s side just as a point was being disputed between the two debaters. She told Romney and a TV audience of millions that Obama was correct.
Never mind that what the president had said and what he meant is still open to widely differing interpretations. Or that Crowley later said Romney himself was correct “in the main.”
What’s important is that this most extraordinary of events – the direct interference in a debate on behalf of one of the candidates – is unprecedented in anyone’s memory, and adds even more evidence to those who say the media is completely in the tank for Obama in this election.
Obama latched on to Crowley’s lifeline the way any drowning man would. He asked: “Can you say that a little louder, Candy?” as some in the audience cheered her words. Like the fresh tag-team wrestler who jumps in the ring to save an exhausted teammate, Crowley had the president’s back.
Before Crowley’s unprofessional interference in the debate, Obama was being battered around pretty good by Romney. Obama avoided directly answering several questions posed by audience members and by his opponent. But the “moderator” seemed to be doing her best to even things out. By one count, she interrupted Romney 28 times and Obama only 9. She “corrected” Romney on the Libya question but said nothing when Obama falsely asserted that Planned Parenthood does mammograms (which it does not), and thus, deserves taxpayer funding.
The morning after the debate, CNN cable news went to town on Romney. In the 7 a.m. Eastern Time hour, host Soledad O’Brien showed some clips of Romney not completely answering a question, but not a single clip of the many, many such instances Obama ducked a question from an audience member or the moderator. When guest and Romney supporter former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu tried to inform O’Brien that the president had made contradictory statements on Libya in the Rose Garden statement that was the subject of the previous day’s debate, O’Brien denied and mocked his claim. It came out later that Sununu was correct.
We’ve written before how the media has been a cheerleader for Obama in this election and last (see Reason #25: “A Media that’s Part of Team Obama” at www.54Reasons.com), but for a debate moderator to actively enter the argument on behalf of one of the candidates raises the question of bias to a new level we haven’t seen before.
Among National Right to Life’s talented staff is a former national Catholic high school debate champion, our State Legislative Director Mary Balch. I asked Mary if she could even envision a situation where one of her debate judges or moderators would ever have interjected themselves by stating a fact or opinion in a competitive debate where they were supposed to be the neutral party.
“I can’t think of anything that would have mortified us more,” Mrs. Balch said. “As debaters, we were a pretty verbose bunch, but that would have been so over the top and inappropriate that I think it’s the one thing that could have silenced every one of us!”
Of course, much of the media doesn’t care about what’s “appropriate” or “fair.” The vast majority of them want to see Obama elected to a second term.
The only way we’re going to prevent that is to sidestep the media and appeal directly to the people who can be persuaded to vote for the pro-life team of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. The National Right to Life Victory Fund has proven methods of getting out the pro-life vote, but we need your help to maximize our efforts in these last 20 days.
National Right to Life will account for some 10 million pieces of mail and literature that explain where the candidates stand on the life issues. We’re close enough to the election that we’re not planning additional mailings, but we can buy more hard-hitting radio ads until the week before the election and get-out-the-vote phone calls right up until the day of the election itself!
That means your gift now to the National Right to Life Victory Fund can make a huge difference and help us reach potentially thousands more voters!
Please help us maximize the pro-life voice speaking for unborn children in the next 20 days and please add your generous contribution to that of other Americans who want an America that is safe for the unborn. Thank you!
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