Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.
If the moderator stands for the American people, and a candidate lies to the moderator, he's lying to the American people. Your position would have us sit there and take it.
I don't see it that way. First of all, the opponent is supposed to call out the lie. Secondly, the post-debate fact checking will catch the lie, and then the lie will become the story and backfire against the liar. Carly told a whopper about a fictitious PP video and was eviscerated after the debate. Carson's nose grow three inches when he lied about the fraudulent company he's flacked for, and now he's being damaged.
If the moderator does this, then it all gets lost in accusations of bias. Plus, most candidate falsehoods have some fraction of "truthiness," and the moderator may well not be giving questions in good faith by taking a discussion down a particular line. The media has a different mechanism for doing that sort of inquisitorial interaction -- the interview. The debate is a different animal.
The other problem is these primary debates need more active moderators, because the candidates are not as adversarial as they would be on a general election and won't call out the lying of others. Someone has to.
It's true that in the GOP debate all the GOP candidates will lie about Obama and Hillary in roughly the same way, but that's OK. The debate is for the GOP nomination, not the general election. The discriminator should be how the GOP candidates differ, not in what ways they are similarly mendacious. One of these toad stools is going to win the nomination. In the general election, their opponent and the editorial media will call them on their lies. But not the moderator. The only refereeing the moderator should do is in regards to the debate procedures. So, they should cut the mics when time expires, and grant additional time to compensate for interruptions (and punish the interrupter). For that matter, the only live mic during the original response should be the candidate speaking. The moderator's job is Roberts Rules. It's up to the candidates, the news departments, the editorial boards, and the public to fact check and weigh the arguments.
But I will say, Hillary is looking more presidential by the day in comparison. She spent 11 hours getting grilled by GOP congressmen intent on bringing her down without losing her temper once. These buffoons are losing their collective shiat over a two hour debate in front of an inept but hardly malicious panel of reporters.
I agree. I don't personally care for SHE!, but she's going to be my standard-bearer in the general and I have no worries how well she will handle the pressure and counter-attack when the inevitable lies and dirty tricks are attempted. She is a Panzer tank and the GOP field are dyspeptic ballerinas.
, but there has to be some base level of accuracy in the moment when these candidates are on stage.
