{"id":23802,"date":"2016-09-08T13:03:03","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T20:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=23802"},"modified":"2016-09-08T13:03:03","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T20:03:03","slug":"the-forum-failed-to-inform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/08\/the-forum-failed-to-inform\/","title":{"rendered":"The Forum Failed to Inform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night’s political forum between Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, and Donald Trump, the Republican, had two distinct halves.  In the first, Matt Lauer pilloried Hillary.  In the second, he showcased Trump.  Don’t take my word for it.  See for yourself.  You can watch the forum here<\/a>, but you’d better pack several cases of barf bags.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0908forum\"<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton still selfishly insists on breathing. Donald Trump heroically maintained a form of consciousness. Trump wins. Signed, the media.<\/p>\n

The idea for the Commander in Chief forum seemed decent, but two things utterly wrecked the evening: the half-hour slice given each candidate was inadequate to discuss substantive issues; and Matt Lauer.<\/p>\n

Most of that fault? Matt Lauer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy enough in any situation to feel that the \u2018ref\u2019 has not been fair. A moderator hitting both sides equally may seem like they\u2019re attacking your candidate, and not going hard enough against the opposition. That\u2019s not the problem here.<\/p>\n

Lauer started his interview by sandbagging Hillary Clinton, interrupting her first answer with a lengthy \u201cquestion\u201d about the email server that was both unrelated to the supposed topic of the evening, and weighted with built-in scorn up to and including the idea that Clinton\u2019s non-crime was \u201cdisqualifying\u201d of her candidacy. Before Hillary could complete her answer to this are-we-really-going-to-do-this zinger, Lauer interrupted her again. With another email question. Then he did it again.<\/p>\n

Watching a replay of the affair, it\u2019s not that Matt Lauer interrupted some of Hillary Clinton\u2019s answers. It\u2019s that he interrupted all of HIllary Clinton\u2019s answers. Repeatedly, he leaped in mid-sentence, first to spew out \u2018questions\u2019 that were actually lengthy position statements allowing no obvious response, then to break in and remind Clinton that they were running out of time when she tried to beat Lauer\u2019s words into an actual question<\/strong>. Lauer displayed a level of disrespect and antagonism to Hillary Clinton that wasn\u2019t just unprofessional, it was punchable.<\/p>\n

Even when Trump was producing a running stream of non-connected thoughts, Lauer sat back until Trump had come stumbling to a halt. He didn\u2019t challenge Trump\u2019s flat-out lies<\/strong>, and several times handed the Republican candidate open-ended questions with an intellectual challenge between \u201cwhat\u2019s your favorite color\u201d and \u201chow cool are puppies?\u201d Lauer never hit Trump with anything remotely equivalent to emails\u2014nothing about his taxes, his failed business deals, his 3,500 lawsuits, or the handy bribes that made some of those lawsuits go away. Since this was ostensibly a forum on military issues, Lauer might have asked Trump to explain his attacks on a Gold-Star family, or the five deferments that kept Trump from ever having to come near service of his own. Nope.<\/p>\n

Overall he treated Trump like a respected businessman, while addressing Clinton as if she was a PA assigned to warm up his coffee between floats in the Macy\u2019s parade<\/strong>… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From <Daily Kos<\/a>><\/p>\n

The only people that provided a shred of equal treatment were the vets.  Rachel Maddow<\/a> discussed one issue they brought up,<\/font><\/p>\n