I seriously do not understand how the traditional media gets to spin their circus show debate any which way they please. Everyone with a mic and a camera are saying that Hillary won the debate, especially CNN. At least the chief MSNBC political hack Chris Matthews had a couple of progressive viewpoints told on his show that refute the unconventional wisdom.
From Crooks and Liars:
Download (125) | Play (140)
Download (136) | Play (71) (h/t Heather)
Tweety had progressive radio giants Mark Green and Ed Schultz on to talk about Hillary’s big win at the debate in Las Vegas Thursday night and apparently Schultz didn’t get the memo.
Schultz: “I think all this postmortem of this debate about how wonderful Hillary is a bridge too far. I think it’s a sad day when a candidate has to start saying well its mud-slinging if you point out what my voting record is.” … “CNN, and especially Wolf, I think they were bending over for Hillary big-time last night.”
Ed also went on to make several other good points too that went against what’s become conventional wisdom regarding who “won” the debate. I’m not saying Hillary did poorly, because it surely was an improvement over her last debate in Philly and clearly she owned the audience all night who were quick to come to her defense to boo Edwards and Obama when each tried to attack her record, but she had a lot of help from CNN too. Not only was the network completely unfair in the amount of time they gave to most of the other candidates, they also were caught planting a softball question from the audience specifically for her to end the night that they had to admit to and then they followed that by having James Carville and David Gergen featured on their post-debate show, both of whom had previously held positions in her husband’s administration and Carville is currently listed as an “informal advisor” to her campaign. That’s quite a coup for any campaign to pull off and should be cause for anyone to re-evaluate the entire evening. Quite frankly, if Hillary won the debate, then any record of the win deserves an asterisk beside it.
So I’m wondering. Who do you think won the debate?
I personally think we all lost. No one really won the debate, because it wasn't a debate. Our democracy is being pulled asunder by the cable news networks so that they can create a narrative that sells their "product." Hillary may have won some points in the horse race, but that is exactly what it is, a horse race. This is not a public forum where voters can choose a candidate based on real issues.
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