Candy Crowley

Lions and tigers and Nazis, oh my!

You know liberals are desperate when their hyperbole about Republicans turns the corner from absurd to unhinged. (audio clips after page break)

"She committed an act of journalistic terror or malpractice last night. If there were any journalistic standards, what she did last night would have been the equivalent of blowing up her career like a suicide bomber."

So said conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh Wednesday regarding Candy Crowley's shameful behavior during the previous night's presidential debate (video follows courtesy Daily Rushbo with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

It looks like Candy Crowley, her establishment press excuse-makers (for her and President Obama), and supporters of the President are going to have to resort to finding penumbras emanating from Obama's September 12 Rose Garden appearance -- y'know, the one during which the press and Democrats insist that the President really, really did call the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya a terrorist attack.

The reason they're going to have to do this is because the person who asked Obama the Libya question is saying that the President himself told him that he delayed calling Benghazi a terrorist attack. Erik Wemple at the Washington Post apparently doesn't grasp the damning significance of what the questioner, Kerry Ladka, relayed to him.

Just before 1 p.m. ET, Rush Limbaugh said the following about CNN's Candy Crowley and her performance as "moderator" last night in the second presidential debate: "In the real world, she would have committed career suicide last night."

Well, Rush, don't discount her ability to self-immolate just yet. The Washington Post reports that Crowley is backtracking on her backtrack (HT PJ Tatler):

The liberal tilt of questions selected by CNN’s Candy Crowley was so obvious, even the gang on NBC’s Today — hardly a conservative bastion — thought it remarkable. Correspondent Chuck Todd observed Wednesday morning: “The President also benefitted from many questions posed by the so-called undecided voters, covering issues near and dear to his liberal base....”

Going into Tuesday night’s debate, the MRC calculated that since 1992, moderators have called upon voters with a liberal agenda twice as often as those with a conservative agenda. The citizens selected by Crowley matched that tilt exactly, with six pro-Obama/liberal-themed questions, vs. three pro-Romney questions, and two others scored as neutral.

Even worse, Crowley interjected herself into the debate to validate President Obama’s erroneous claim that “the day after the attack [in Libya], I stood in the Rose Garden and told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror....”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney first acknowledged on September 20 that the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was a terrorist attack.

Coming eight days after the President's Rose Garden remarks on the subject, this appears to be in stark contrast to what he and CNN's Candy Crowley claimed in Tuesday's presidential debate.

The following is from Carney's September 20 press gaggle:

Candy Crowley is rightfully coming under fire for acting like a biased referee in Tuesday night's presidential debate.

On CNN's Starting Point Wednesday, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Ut.) scolded Crowley saying, "It wasn't necessarily your place to try to be fact-checker" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

During Tuesday's post-debate coverage on CNN, as the panel discussed moderator Candy Crowley giving cover to President Obama's attempt to defend his initial flawed response to the Benghazi terrorist attack, CNN correspondent John King blamed former Governor Mitt Romney for giving Crowley the opening to undermine the GOP candidate's criticism of Obama for taking so long to recognize that the attack was a premeditated act of terrorism.

Shortly before 11:30 p.m., CNN anchor Anderson Cooper had raised the subject as he defended Romney's reasoning and suggested that Obama was taking himself out of context to cover his own tracks. Cooper:

After embarrassing herself with her incompetently biased attempt to “fact check” GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the second presidential debate, CNN correspondent Candy Crowley has already began trying to save her shattered credibility. In a panel discussion afterward, a fast-talking Crowley tried to spin away her offensive conduct by admitting that Romney was indeed correct in casting blame on the Obama Administration for falsely blaming an anti-Islamic video for attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“It was one of those moments, and I could even feel that here, you know, when you say something you’re not expecting,” Crowley insisted, admitting she simply couldn’t help herself from unprofessionally inserting herself into a heated dispute between presidential candidates.

CNN correspondent and second presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley disgraced herself tonight, repeatedly intervening to save a floundering President Obama and showing why many Americans were rightfully suspicious of her ability to moderate a presidential debate fairly.

Her most outrageous act tonight was her incorrect seconding of Obama's statement that he declared the Libya terrorist attacks to be "terror." While Obama did indeed use the word, this is not what he meant by it. Instead, he was simply referring to "acts of terror." There was no mention of Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates with respect to the actual attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.

Conceivably the biggest moment in Tuesday's presidential debate was when moderator Candy Crowley injected herself into the discussion siding with Barack Obama on remarks he claimed he made in the Rose Garden following the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Long-time Democrat campaign strategist Joe Trippi said on Fox News shortly after the debate's conclusion that this looked like "the ref just threw the flag" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Tonight’s town hall-style presidential debate will ostensibly feature questions from undecided voters, but the evening’s agenda will really be decided by the moderator, as CNN’s Candy Crowley will select which of the more than roughly 80 voters in the room will actually get a chance to talk to the candidates.

Reviewing the five previous town hall debates, the journalist-moderators have tended to skew the agenda of these so-called citizen forums to the liberal side of the spectrum, but not always. Overall, questions have been twice as likely to favor liberal causes versus conservative ones.

Of the four liberal-media moderators selected by both parties at the Commission for Presidential Debates, CNN's Candy Crowley is the fairest. She's a longtime political-news pro, but that doesn't mean that in her long tenure at CNN, she doesn't have a "paper trail" (video trail) of liberal bias.

On Fox News this afternoon, James Pinkerton cited MRC’s research [see below] and said “I think things look pretty good for Obama.” Alan Colmes shot back, “Didn't the New York Times profile yesterday show that Candy Crowley was likely a Republican and worked for Dole or something? Colmes was oh, so wrong.

With less than 48 hours to go before Tuesday's presidential debate, the moderator's role is being questioned because of things Candy Crowley has said on CNN.

Time's Mark Halperin reported late Sunday:

This past week's presidential debate put at least two Kossacks in mind of throwing punches and caused another to reflect upon which group Republicans hate more: women or those who pay no income taxes.

And why do leftists hate all the liberal debate moderators, like first-timer Candy Crowley of CNN? As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday oddly went counter to the liberal media meme concerning Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's taxes.

In a State of the Union discussion on the subject with Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Crowley actually said, "It is the IRS system and he took advantage of it which I do, which I assume both of you do" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

CNN keeps playing up the controversy that supposedly is the Republican Party's platform on abortion – even though it resembles the language from the 2004 and 2008 platforms.

"The platform has this really sledgehammer view that all abortions are going to be outlawed, even for rape or for incest, and even for health of the mother," said political analyst David Gergen during Tuesday night's coverage of the Republican Convention. [Video below the break.]

Bad weather may have forced Vice President Joe Biden to skip his plans to make mischief at this week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, but Democrats don’t have to worry: the liberal “news” media have been “counter-programming” GOP conventions for decades.

It doesn’t matter whether the nominee is a conservative like Ronald Reagan, or a moderate like John McCain — network reporters always seem to scold the delegates and platform as too conservative, hostile to women, anathema to blacks, and an all-around turn-off to voters. [Below the jump: Video montage of the media's anti-GOP bias, 1988-2008]

Affirmative-action lovers were thrilled that CNN's Candy Crowley would be the first female to moderate a presidential debate since Carole Simpson's sneering turn in 1992. Crowley deserves the opportunity after being in the field of political news for decades, and is the closest thing the current crop of moderators has to a Tim Russert type in being able to question firmly both sides of the aisle.

However, Crowley still fits within the CNN media-elite mold of liberalism, and not just with her unfortunate channeling of "some Republicans" on Saturday who anonymously felt the Paul Ryan pick "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish." Below are a list of some of Crowley's more liberal moments on the CNN airwaves:

As NewsBusters has been noting all Saturday morning, now that Paul Ryan has been chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate, the goal of the Obama-loving media is to rip him to shreds.

Doing her part Saturday was CNN's Candy Crowley who claimed some Republicans (unnamed, of course) think this "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish."

[[Editor's Note: Since the townhall debate format debuted in the 1992, the media moderators have favored left-wing question 2 to 1 over conservative ones. Get the facts here.]]

CNN used Friday's tragic shooting to force the gun control debate back into headlines this past weekend, and multiple network anchors made a blatant liberal push for further gun regulation.

The advocacy began just hours after the atrocity, despite both President Obama and Mitt Romney abstaining from politicking on the day of the massacre. "America has got to do something about its gun laws. Now is the time," CNN's Piers Morgan tweeted hours after the shooting. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN pushed for more gun control on the very day of the Aurora shootings – to the dismay of media critic Howard Kurtz – and host Candy Crowley continued the fight on Sunday and Monday.

In her Monday report, Crowley stressed the lack of "courage" – borrowing from a one gun control advocate – in today's Democratic Party to pursue firearms regulation. And when Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) noted the lack of outrage over gun violence, Crowley agreed, "She's right." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Candy Crowley got a much-needed education Sunday on the uselessness and futility of stricter gun laws in the wake of Friday's movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado.

As she pushed Governor John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) to agree that tighter gun restrictions are needed to prevent such incidents in the future, the Democrat pushed back, "If there were no assault weapons available, there were no this or no that, this guy’s going to find something...He’s going to know how to create a bomb" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday actually pressed a senior Barack Obama adviser on the campaign's "false" claim that Mitt Romney was responsible for outsourcing while at Bain Capital. Unlike ABC, which credulously parroted Obama's attacks, Crowley reminded Robert Gibbs that "this particular ad got four Pinocchios from the Washington Post."

The Obama operative dodged, huffing, "Factcheck.org ought to read the Washington Post, which is the one that came up with a report that said...Mitt Romney and Bain Capital were pioneers in outsourcing." Crowley wouldn't let go of the point, reminding, "Mitt Romney was not running Bain. He had cut ties and gone off." CNN's graphic for the segment boldly knocked the "false attack ads." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

You would think after all the negative press MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell got for trashing Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapy of riding horses, media members would have wised up.

Apparently not, for on CNN's State of the Union Sunday, USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page referred to Mrs. Romney's remedy as a "very expensive horse riding dressage habit" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

One of the key parts of Thursday's Supreme Court ruling regarding the President's healthcare bill was that the fine for not complying with the individual mandate must be considered a tax in order for it to be constitutional.

On CNN's State of the Union Sunday, host Candy Crowley didn't think this was a very important distinction (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):