By The Numbers: Moderator Raddatz Attacked Ryan 9 Times, Biden Once

And of course the liberals all cheer about what an unbiased moderator she was, lol.

Liberals are more pleased with moderator Martha Raddatz than conservatives are disappointed. And it's easy to see why. Raddatz allowed Joe Biden to interrupt Paul Ryan repeatedly during the Vice Presidential debate, and interrupted Ryan herself, while posing questions that were radically in favor of the Obama team. Ryan overcame Raddatz's bias and won the debate regardless, leaving less for conservatives to complain about.

Still, it is worth noting the facts. While the candidates' speaking time was roughly equal--not counting crosstalk, Biden spoke for 38:25 and Ryan 37:27--Raddatz’s questions were not in any way a measure of equality. She hit the Republican no fewer than nine times with pointed questions that were either an attack on Romney/Ryan or a way to set up excuses for Obama.

The one time Raddatz confronted Biden, it was to ask him to elaborate on what he meant by "a bunch of stuff" in attacking Ryan's honesty--setting Biden up to elaborate. That sole question is cited by Huffington Post as evidence of Raddatz's even-handedness.

Here are Raddatz's attacks:

Attack #1: Holding Ryan and Romney, not Biden or Obama, accountable for Libya statements.

I just want to talk to you about right in the middle of the crisis. Governor Romney -- and you’re talking about this again tonight -- talked about the weakness, talked about apologies from the Obama administration. Was that really appropriate right in the middle of the crisis?

Here, Raddatz was providing cover for Biden, as she primed the topic of Libya by focusing on the intelligence gathered and what "people" said, rather than the Obama Administration’s lying about the cause of the attack:

What were you first told about the attack? Why were people talking about protests? When people in the consulate first saw armed men attacking with guns, there were no protesters. Why did that go on for weeks?

Attack #2: Asking Ryan--and only Ryan--to respond to American misdeeds in war.

Mr. Ryan, I want to ask you about -- the Romney campaign talks a lot about no apologies. He has a book called “No Apologies.” Should the U.S. have apologized for Americans burning Qurans in Afghanistan? Should the U.S. apologize for U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses?

Attack #3: Asking what the Romney/Ryan team would do, but not Obama/Biden, about Iran.

How will you do it so quickly? Look, you both saw Benjamin Netanyahu hold up that picture of a bomb with the red line and talking about the red line being in spring. So can you solve this -- if the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected, can you solve this in two months before spring and avoid nuclear –

Attack #4: Asking Ryan specific questions on unemployment, while letting Biden avoid them.

Raddatz asked when each team expected to get unemployment below 6%, but then, after Biden was evasive, kept asking Ryan: “When could you get it below 6 percent?”

Attack #6: Attacking Ryan--and only Ryan--for past legislative stances,

While discussing Medicare, Biden brought up Social Security for a moment. Ryan responded, and then Raddatz suddenly turned to Ryan and accused, “You were one of the few lawmakers to stand with President Bush when he was seeking to partially privatize Social Security.”

Attack #7: Accusing Ryan of not offering "specifics"--and interrupting him:

"You have refused yet again to offer specifics on how you pay for that 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. Do you actually have the specifics, or are you still working on it, and that’s why you won’t tell voters?” After Ryan tried to explain, she cut him off, barking, “Do you have the specifics? Do you have the math? Do you know exactly what you’re doing?” She followed by interrupting him again, “No specifics, yeah.”

Attack #8: Falsely accusing Ryan of wanting to add to the defense budget.

Ryan tried over and over to explain that he and Romney weren’t increasing the defense budget, just not cutting it, but Raddatz was deaf to him. Thus:

Raddatz: And you’re going -- and you’re going to increase the defense budget.

Ryan: Think about it this way.

Raddatz: And you’re going to increase the defense budget.

Attack #9: Asking Ryan, not Biden, about the implications of his stance on abortion.

Instead of asking Biden why his administration favors abortion-on-demand, Raddatz turned on Ryan:

I want to go back to the abortion question here. If the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected, should those who believe that abortion should remain legal be worried?

It’s sickening to think that the Republicans have to fight their opponents as well as the moderators in these debates. Those who were suspicious of Raddatz before the debate were absolutely correct.

It is a testament to Ryan's success that he managed to maintain his composure and win a two-to-one battle, according to most polls.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...ator-Raddatz-Attacked-Ryan-9-Times-Biden-Once

 

She was absolutely a political hack. The GOP had better find a way to make the debate moderators more even before the next presidential race. I just don't understand why they allow this to happen. It's crazy.

 

By the numbers, Romney lied, or "misattributed", as his staff put it, 100% of the time during his first debate.

 

Raddatz Visited Biden at His Residence in March

10:31 AM, OCT 12, 2012 • BY DANIEL HALPERSingle

White House records reveal that the moderator of last night's vice presidential debate, Martha Raddatz, visited Vice President Joe Biden at his official residence on March 26, 2012. Raddatz is an employee of ABC News.


As the records show, that day Raddatz visited the VPR (or, the vice president's residence) for a "Women's History Month Reception." That record was released on June 29, 2012.

According to Biden's schedule released the day before the event, "the Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden will host a reception in honor of Women’s History Month at the Naval Observatory."

There appears to be no pool report from the event, which presumably was widely attended, that might have recorded the details from the events.

On at least one other occasion, Raddatz visited the White House. According to records, that visit was on December 18, 2009. The reason for that visit is not know, though her meeting appears to have taken place in the Old Executive Office Building, and not the West Wing.

Before last night's debate, Raddatz came under scrutiny after the Daily Caller revealed she had attended President Barack Obama's wedding in 1991 with her now ex-husband, Obama administration official Julius Genachowski.

 

The VP debate is small peanuts. The real deal will be Tuesday at Hofstra.

 

The next debate will be a town hall meeting with undecided voters (as selected by Gallup) asking the questions. This 'should" minimize moderator interference (Candy Crowley).

 

Once again, Joe Biden lied his way through a Vice Presidential debate--just as he did in his contest with Sarah Palin in 2008. This time, the media caught a few of Biden's worst "malarkey" moments--as did his opponent, Paul Ryan, when he could get a word in edgewise.

Here are the top ten worst lies told by Biden during the debate:

10. "With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey....not a single thing he said is accurate." At the outset of the debate, Biden tried to paint Ryan as a liar--when Biden, in fact, was the one lying. Ryan had pointed out: 1) that the White House had distanced itself from the Cairo embassy's apologies on 9/11; 2) that Obama had failed to speak up for Iranian protestors in 2009; 3) that the Obama administration called Syria's dictator a "reformer"; 4) and that the Obama administration is imposing defense cuts and projecting weakness. All of that is true.

9. "The president has met with Bibi [Netanyahu] a dozen times....This is a bunch of stuff." While they have met several times--not a dozen--that includes a meeting at which Obama made the Israeli prime minister enter the White House through a back entrance, refused to take a picture with him, and left him on his own for dinner. Specifically, Ryan had criticized Obama's refusal to meet Netanyahu in New York last month, and to tape talk show interviews instead--a clear snub that sent the wrong signal, again, to Israel's enemies.

8. "Just let the taxes expire like they’re supposed to on those millionaires." Biden's "millionaires" are actually households earning more than $250,000 a year, which includes many middle-class families with two earners, and small business owners in particular who report business earnings as personal income. Biden and Obama have repeatedly labeled those earning over $250,000 as "millionaires and billionaires," distorting the actual impact of their tax plan on the non-millionaires it would hit hardest, who create a vast proportion of small business jobs.

7. "You know, I heard that death panel argument from Sarah Palin. It seems that every vice presidential debate, I hear this kind of stuff about panels." Biden's cheap shot against Palin was an attempt to diminish both her and the man sitting across from him. But Palin never talked about "death panels" in her debate with Biden, for the simple reason that Obamacare had not yet been proposed. Nor did Ryan mention "death panels"--he had addressed the undeniable fact that Obamacare proposes a board to impose cost controls.

6. "The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for." Biden's lie about Ryan's budget was an attempt to dodge responsibility for lax embassy security--and to cover up that the Obama called for new cuts to embassy security just days after the 9/11 attacks. Ryan's proposal, which called for a 19% overall decrease in non-defense discretionary spending, does not even mention embassy security--the Obama campaign merely made up that number by applying 19% across the board.

5. "No, they are not four years closer to a nuclear weapon." Biden's attempt to lie about the glaring reality of the Iranian nuclear program fell flat. Iran is indeed four years closer to a nuclear weapon, and the Obama administration--believing it knew better than its predecessors--tried to reinvent the wheel on talks with Iran, causing frustration to our allies in Europe and the Middle East. Meeting after meeting this year has failed to produce results, and the loophole-filled sanctions, while hurting Iran somewhat, are not stopping its nuclear program.

4. "No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise...has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact." No, it is not a fact--it is the opposite of a fact, and saying "that is a fact" does not make it any less a blatant lie. The Obama administration is forcing religious institutions to provide contraceptive and abortion drugs through their insurance policies. That is the reason several dozen religious institutions are suing the administration to defend their First Amendment freedom of religion.

3. "It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card...I was there. I voted against him." Biden voted for both the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. He did not vote for George W. Bush's plan to extend coverage of Medicare to prescription drugs (though he voted for an earlier, similar proposal), nor did he vote for the Bush tax cuts. But he voted for both of the wars he derided last night. To quote Bill Clinton's speech to the Democratic National Convention: "It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did."

2. "What we did is we saved $716 billion and put it back -- applied it to Medicare." Biden repeated the lie the Obama administration has been telling since before Obamacare passed in 2010: that cuts to Medicare today were savings that extend the life of the program. They would be--if the same $716 billion wasn't also being used to pay for Obamacare. As Ryan pointed out in 2010, and again last night, you can't double-count the same cuts. Taking $716 billion out of Medicare means exactly that--and hurts, not helps, the program's solvency.

1. "Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security again." Biden lied through his teeth about the fact that the administration--specifically, the State Department--had been told again and again that security on the ground in Libya, and in Benghazi in particular, was inadequate. The day before, in Congressional hearings on the Libya attacks, former regional security director Eric Nordstrom described his frustration with having those requests turned down by the government bureaucracy: "For me the Taliban is on the inside of the building."

 

Ryan what he deserved. He got his respect years ago when he first trotted his ideas and plans out. In those years all three sides have analyzed and critiqued those plans, but Ryan has not adjusted them, only his claims about them. If he's going to continue spouting stupidity, then the respect has to be withdrawn. There shouldn't be any "fair" entertaining demonstrably false ideas.

 

“Biden interrupted 82 times during the entire debate.” To those watching on television, that seemed like a low number.

Raddatz followed the Biden lead though – interrupting the debaters 50 times. She leaned heavily on Ryan, interrupting him 31 times, 12 more than the 19 times she cut off Biden.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012...nd-biden-performance-at-debate/#ixzz296HqGysG

 

I had a totally different take on Raddatz.

First, she handed Ryan a huge opportunity by starting the debate on the subject of Libya and specifically the Benghazi disaster and coverup. Biden lied through his teeth, but Ryan failed to make much of it, despite congressional hearings this week on the failures. Instead, he inexplicably wandered off to a discussion of Iran and Afghanistan.

Yes, she pushed Ryan on seveeral subjects, but in doing so she gave him an opening to make his points and rebut the implied criticism. A good debater, a Newt gingrich or even a Romney, would have smacked those sitters out of the park. Ryan stumbled. His worst moment was on the tax deductions he would cut. I don't see it as the slightest bit unfair to ask him to specify them. He won't, and the reason is because they will be deeply unpopular with the republican base. That is not Raddatz' fault.

Ryan could also have used the opportunity to point out that Obama has never come up with any program cuts, other than defense and medicare. It was a perfect opening for him to level with the voters and convince them that obama is dissembling. he didn't do it.

Same with abortion. She asked him an easy follow up about women losing the right to an abortion. All he had to say was that if Roe were to be overturned, abortion rights would be determined by the states. It wouldn't be "outlawed" as Biden claimed. He could have also made the point that all Romney would control would be soem federal policies regarding paying for abortions and forcing religious instituions and doctors to provide them against their consciences. It was a softball querstion he should have hit out of the park, Instead he buckled his knees.

Basically, what we saw with Ryan was a very inexperienced debater who seemed awfully tight in his first big league appearance. He managed to recite his preplanned talking points, but seemed clumsy in responging to Biden's jabs. He also needed to show a little more backbone and tell Biden to knock off the constant interruptions.