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The Most Biased Presidential Debate Moderator Ever?

Redress said:
He did not go after any one with any intensity. Not even remotely. If Trump could not handle that, he can in no way handle the pressure of being president.
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opinion noted not shared.
 
Redress said:
I heard that Lester was really easy on Trump, and still got blamed for Trump's failings. What I heard is more likely true than what you heard.

And ask yourself one important question: if Lester had done exactly as Trump wanted, would it have made a bit of difference? Would Trump have been any more prepared, and more on point, any less rambling?
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You heard that, or you made it up?

Again, non-biased participant here. I voted for Bernie during the primary, and am now currently organizing a "None of the Above" campaign. I've got no reason to side with Trump. But, you cannot deny what was readily apparent, and able to be documented.

# of interruptions by Lester Holt
46 interruptions of Trump, 5 interruptions of Hillary

# of follow-up, redirects, requests for clarification, countering, "fact checking", etc.
24 occasions of countering statements made by Trump, only 1 time asking Hillary to clarify a statement

# of questions asked specifically directed towards either candidate individually
6 lines of questions asked directly about controversial topics of Trumps (each of the responses getting challenge on multiple occasions), 2 lines of questions asked of Hillary, only one of which was a controversial topic (none of the responses got countered by Holt).

There's no question about it. It's factually born out through the statistics of what went on. There was a clear bias.


As far as "not being prepared", what question did Trump not have a prepared answer for?

The only one that seemed to stump him was who was the random chick referencing him calling her Miss Piggy, up until she name dropped that horrid character witness.
 
IndCentristMA said:
This was another major problem with the moderation as well. This isn't "fact checking". This is finding one quote and trying to blow it up out of context, and using it as a gotcha style political attack. The MODERATOR of the debate has no business acting in this manner. If Hillary wanted to bring up Trump saying he supported the Iraq War during that question, that's one thing.

But, you have to remember. This question HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE IRAQ WAR. They were talking about her judgment, and discussing relevant current events, such as ISIS and the Nuclear deal with Iran. Lester jumped in and said "How is your judgment better than yours, if you supported the Iraq War", which is a trap question completely off topic.

It's really not a bogus claim, either. I'd seen numerous appearances with Trump around that time where he was stating he was against the war. It's typically his general position. Trump never shies away from the ability to use military force, for sudden strikes, but he's always been mostly an isolationist when it comes to getting involved in war, because he's a big national debt guy. He knows war debt tend to hurt his stock portfolio, what he's usually most concerned with. So, yes, I did see him say numerous times throughout that period that he was against the war.

The supposed "gotcha" quote was from an appearance on Howard Stern where asked if he was for the war and he said "I guess so". "I guess so" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, and him urging people to get on board with it. It's also an appearance by a private businessman and entertainment figure on the Howard Stern show. That's not exactly the forum for political conversation either. On the flip side, Hillary wasn't saying "I guess so", but was out arguing heavily in favor of doing it. She argued before Congress in favor of the Iraq War resolution, and a future funding bill to continue the effort.

The important aspect which a true "fact checker" would really divulge isn't one brief statement on a talk radio show, but rather a full timeline of all his statements with true context behind them. The appearance on the Howard Stern show in question was from late August of 2002. There was no Iraq War to speak of. What Iraq War would he have been in favor of? At that point in time, they were just switching the focus from Afghanistan into Iraq, and it was still all talk of weapons inspections at that point.

Congress wouldn't take up the Iraq War resolution until October 2002, 2 months later, and as most of the Congressmen who voted on it stated, they didn't feel at the time that they were voting to approve a war, but rather just clarifying that should it come to that point, that the president would be authorized to send troops without needing to have declared war.

There was another quote of Trump's from November, in which he stated that he didn't want us to go in, but he felt that if we did, we needed to make sure we took the oil to pay for it. (That statement exactly mirrors many of the ones I heard him speak about from the same time period). But, the quote they used makes it seem vague, as if he's there blood thirsty trying to go into Iraq for the oil.

Colin Powell's speech before the UN about the weapons inspections wasn't until January of 2003, 5 months after Trump's comments. The Iraq War didn't become a thing until about that point, and it didn't occur until March.

There were numerous speaking engagements where Trump spoke out against the War prior to March of 2003. If the "fact checker" had done due diligence, they would have found them, and accurately reported that Trump did indeed make statements against the War, even before it became popular to do so.

As he said, he'd have arguments about this topic with Sean Hannity all the time (who was always a Warhawk), and he would be against the War. Immediately after the debate, Sean Hannity affirmed that to be the case. He went into detail, too, further elaborating on it.

He was out early on being against the war. That's not in any way how they painted it. So, that's just another instance where it shows how they were biased in reporting only one side of that issue.

Regardless, how in any way did this pertain to Hillary Clinton's poor job as Secretary of State, and not dealing with ISIS, Egypt's protests, the Benghazi situation, nuclear deal with Iran, not doing anything about the Russians taking the Crimea, etc.

It didn't, and Lester Holt knew it didn't, this was yet another biased hatchet job during the debate.
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Jesus Christ. Unless the winning Powerball number is in there there's no goddamn way I'm reading that.
 
RELATED

Donald Trump Now Thinks the Presidential Debate Was a ‘Rigged Deal’

…The GOP nominee has soured on moderator Lester Holt, whom he praised right after the debate….

“Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday complained that he received unfair treatment from NBC News anchor Lester Holt, who moderated the first presidential debate in New York on Monday.

“During the debate the other night, I had to put up with the anchor and fight the anchor all the time on everything I said,” Trump said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire. “What a rigged deal. I tell you we’re in such a rigged system. It is terrible. What’s going on in this country is so sad.”………

………….. But when a CNN reporter asked Trump about Holt’s performance immediately after the debate on Monday, Trump gave the veteran newsman high marks. “I thought Lester did a great job. Honestly, I thought Lester did a great job,” Trump said, adding that Holt’s questioning as moderator had been “very fair.”………….

…….. Trump said on Fox News that Holt appeared “more than a little” biased against him. The following day, in an appearance on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump said that Holt earned a “C” grade and that his opinion had changed after the debate……….

……….. Holt wasn’t the only target of Trump’s anger. On Tuesday, he complained about a faulty microphone, which he suggested might have been set up to undermine his performance.

“I wonder if it was set up that way,” he said. “It was terrible.”
Donald Trump Now Thinks The Presidential Debate Was A 'Rigged Deal' | Huffington Post

Sniffles finally came to the understanding…..HE LOST…….. and now had to find out who was responsible……maybe it’s the great right wing conspiracy ……..
The man has the emotional maturity of a 10 year old…….
 
Cardinal said:
Jesus Christ. Unless the winning Powerball number is in there there's no goddamn way I'm reading that.
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I know, right. God forbid that might take a whole 20-30 seconds, and advance a political debate on a forum meant to debate topics. :roll:

But, since you're so concerned with the size of it, make sure to copy the whole thing in quotes when you make your pointless statement that you didn't read it ;)

Don't worry, I've noticed this to be a common trait among people... not wanting to read statements that counter their opinions on topics they're wrong on.
 
Redress said:
Winners don't make excuses. That is what losers do. Maybe Trump should not make excuses for his being unprepared.
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But almost every poll says Trump. I believe its mostly because people see he held his own while being out numbered two to one.
 
Casca XV said:
But almost every poll says Trump. I believe its mostly because people see he held his own while being out numbered two to one.
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Polls say Trump what? The scientific polls have most people thinking Trump lost, though those have a low confidence. Some online polls have Trump winning, but those are unscientific, inaccurate and easily abused. How it will effect the polls for the presidency remains to be seen, but early polls suggest Clinton may get a couple percentage bounce.
 
IndCentristMA said:
THE MOST BIASED PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE MODERATOR EVER?

There is likely no such thing as a perfect impartial balance. Most of the people selected as moderators have long-standing involvement in political reporting and usually have a long established bias that they cannot leave in the past.

But, a few years ago Presidential debate moderation took a real turn for the worse, when Gwen Ifill of PBS started directly challenging sitting Vice President Dick Cheney, on a few issues she notably took issue with personally. But, even still, it was 10 questions for Cheney, and 10 questions for Edwards. From that point on, though, moderators have begun trying to push themselves further into the debate forum, and become part of the narrative of the event. They've tried to move social media outlets into the debates, and to start making names for themselves.

Still, that day at Case Western Reserve University pales in comparison with what went on last night at Hofstra University in New York City, as Lester Holt put on what from my memory was the most complete one-sided job of moderating a Presidential Debate that ever existed.

I not only watched the debate twice, but I've also scoured over the transcripts to confirm that this really was the case. I went through and measured numbers of how things went on.

My findings were absolutely astonishing.

(Part 1 of 6)
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Giving a candidate a defective mic as seems to have been the case is putting real punch into your bias.
 
IndCentristMA said:
THE MOST BIASED PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE MODERATOR EVER?
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Trump got beat.

When you win a debate, you don't go on a multi-day tirade about microphones, about not having the sniffles, about the moderators, and you don't stay up until 3:30 AM writing Twitter tirades telling people to hunt down allegedly pornographic videos of Miss Universe.


that day at Case Western Reserve University pales in comparison with what went on last night at Hofstra University in New York City, as Lester Holt put on what from my memory was the most complete one-sided job of moderating a Presidential Debate that ever existed.
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No, it wasn't.

He lost. Get over it.
 
Quote Originally Posted by IndCentristMA View Post
THE MOST BIASED PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE MODERATOR EVER?

Visbek said:
Trump got beat.

When you win a debate, you don't go on a multi-day tirade about microphones, about not having the sniffles, about the moderators, and you don't stay up until 3:30 AM writing Twitter tirades telling people to hunt down allegedly pornographic videos of Miss Universe.

No, it wasn't.

He lost. Get over it.
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Okay, there's clearly a lot of thick people here who can't read, just plain don't read, or worse, have serious comprehension issues. So let me clarify this once again.

The OP asks nothing about who won or who lost the debate. That's for debate opinion posts, and there are several other relevant threads for those sorts of discussions.

I do not have a dog in that fight, and don't care. Full disclosure, I voted Bernie in the primary, I am organizing a write-in "None of the Above" campaign for the general election, and particularly can't stand either of them.

My interest is the protection of our political process or rather restoration of our political process back to a legitimate one which best represents the interests of the people. My interest also lies in following this along as a political historian. My interest in watching the debate was purely for entertainment purposes, and historical perspective. I was not rooting for or against either of them. So, please spare the crap about who won/lost the debate, or what to stop "whining about" and "getting over".

The OP, as clearly stated, was about how it was conducted, and the performance of the Moderator, and how that pertains to past moderators, and potential future ones.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO QUESTION of whether the moderator's performance was biased. That's documented. The numbers bear it out completely.

Whether you're a liberal Trump hater, a conservative Trump hater, an independent Trump hater, you can simply not counter the facts of the debate.

Moderator interruptions: 46 of Trump (90.19%) - 5 of Clinton (9.8%)

Challenges to candidates statements: 24 of Trump (96%) - 1 of Clinton (4%)

Breakdown of questions: 15 Total, 6 to Trump specifically (40%) - 7 of both candidates (46.67%) - 2 to Clinton specifically (13.33%)*

* One of those 2 questions to Hillary that was asked, was only brought up by Trump, and then asked from Holt as an opportunity to respond, not necessarily even a question.

Additionally, the very nature of the questions were particularly directed at controversial statements of Trumps, as he was being constantly challenged on them by the moderator, while Hillary was given tee-ball questions, that she had time to prepare answers for, and wasn't challenged on.

On top of that, there was the one time during the debate when he even physically turned towards the Trump supporters in the crowd and "admonished" them after reacting to a rousing statement by Trump, when he had otherwise been letting noise go for laughter and reactions to both candidates supporters.

Furthermore, he even tried to argue policy with Trump at one point in the debate, when it was in relation to his question about Stop and Frisk, arguing the point that it was inherently racist. That's not what the moderator is there for at all. That was a major line to cross, when the moderator is putting his own personal input into the policies being discussed.

It was absolutely a one-sided moderation. There can be no question about that.


I'm not here to discuss controversies regarding the;
- a faulty mic issued to Trump
- potential face scratch signal
- her supposed receiving questions ahead of time
- the papers that she didn't bring out, but that were spotted on the podium
- the supposed ear piece that she wore to get advice

All those things are speculative at best. They're out there and being discussed actively, but those are the things that come off as excuses.

I'm also not here to try and look towards the lighting, the placement of the candidates, sniffles, etc. or any of these other things people talk about that may have affected debate performance. That's just the nature of debates. Some thing will slightly favor one candidate in that regards. That's essentially unavoidable.

I'm only concerned with the facts. The fact is this was a completely one-sided moderation performance that favored Clinton.

The question posed is can anyone name a debate where the moderator was even remotely near as biased in their performance as Holt was during this?


(But, again, as I do wish to remain dealing in facts, staying up to 3am on Twitter isn't exactly behavior that's out of the norm, so that really stands as a poor example of whether he felt he won or not. That's just how he rolls.)
 
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