This story is based on two sources–a Mediaite article posted last night and a Breitbart.com article posted this morning.
Mediaite reports some comments made by Candy Crowley this morning:
“I heard the president speak at the time. I, sort of, reread a lot of stuff about Libya because I knew we’d probably get a Libya question so I kind of wanted to be up on it,” said Crowley. “I knew that the president had said, you know, these acts of terror won’t stand. Or, whatever the whole quote was.”
“Right after that I did turn around and say, but you’re totally correct that they spent two weeks telling us this was about a tape and that that there was this riot outside the Benghazi consulate which there wasn’t,” Crowley added.
“He was right in the main, I just think he picked the wrong word,” Crowley concluded. She went on to say that her instinct forced her to correct Romney even though his “thrust” was correct.
Where were the corrections to the many falsehoods Obama told–domestic energy production, job creation, the budget deficit, etc.?
Breitbart reports:
Crowley made Lehrer look like an amateur. She interrupted Obama nine times, (although four of those were when he wouldn’t respect the time limit when discussing assault weapons; he went over his time limit all night long), but when it came to Mitt Romney, she was utterly beyond the pale.
Crowley interrupted Romney 28 times. 28 times. Her desperation to keep Romney from scoring points was so patently obvious that it wasn’t really a surprise when she had her infamous moment: the moment when she interrupted and falsely claimed Romney was incorrect in accusing Obama of refusing to call the Benghazi attack an act of terror.
The article at Breitbart cites a number of incidents where Ms. Crowley did not act as a moderator, but took sides. It is unfortunate that the sponsors of the debates cannot find moderators who do not favor one candidate. I think of all the debates, Jim Lehrer has done the best job of all–he let the candidates state their cases without interference.
