The Republican National Committee has followed through on its threat to cut out NBC and CNN from the hosting of presidential debates if the networks will not cancel their plans to beatify Hillary Clinton in a made-for-TV movie and a fawning documentary, respectively.
The Republican National Committee has voted to boycott any presidential primary debates planned by CNN and NBC if they proceed with lengthy television features on Hillary Clinton, widely expected to be a 2016 Democratic candidate.
With no audible dissent, GOP officials approved a resolution backing the position at their annual summer meeting in Boston on Friday.
The RNC claims that a Clinton-themed documentary and a separate miniseries -- in the works from CNN and NBC, respectively -- will put a "thumb on the scales" in the upcoming 2016 presidential election.
The draft resolution, obtained by Fox News in advance and later voted on by RNC officials, calls on CNN and NBC to cancel what it describes as "political ads masked as unbiased entertainment."
Well yeah. Of course that's what it is.
But the problem of media-moderated debates goes way beyond this one issue. Even if you can get beyond the liberal bias, members of the media have no place moderating presidential debates.
The reason is simple: When debate moderators are journalists, it's the journalists who decide what the candidates are going to talk about. Now you might see that as a good thing because, if left to their own devices, candidates would stick to a) self-glorifying topics; or b) embarrassing lines of attack against their opponents.
But that doesn't mean that the topics as dictated by the media are any better. Journalists moderating the 2012 Republican debates spent inordinate amounts of time on social issues, in a clear attempt to embarass the candidates by making them look like extremists. Contraception is not a presidential issue, but you would have never known it to listen to these debates. Sometimes it's even worse than that. CNN turned one of the 2011 debates into a complete joke with a set of silly "this or that" questions that had nothing to do with anything.
And everyone remembers Bernard Shaw putting Michaal Dukakis in a bad way with his question about the death penalty if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered. A lot of Republicans like it because Dukakis did poorly with the question, but I didn't like it because it was a clear attempt by Shaw to make himself the star of the show.
Of course, we all remember Candy Crowley's fiasco of a performance coming to Barack Obama's defense when in fact neither the president nor Crowley had their facts correct.
Part of the problem is that there is actually an art to debate moderation, and the training and skills of a journalist are something entirely different. That's why you so often see answers go over time, topics ignored and people shouting at each other. It's also why you so often see preening, self-aggrandizing questions designed to create "gaffes" or "moments" that can turn into headlines.
Here's my proposal: Let debate coaches from local high schools or colleges moderate the debates. They can specify topics, enforce time limits and so forth, but otherwise they can leave it to the candidates to question each other. That way you eliminate the issue of moderator bias. You also eliminate the moderators' attempts to get attention for themselves. And by the way, get rid of those stupid town hall debates where regular citizens ask the questions. Those are ridiculous.
I'm glad NBC and CNN are getting cut out. Now all we need to do is cut out the rest of the media.
