How would you grade Gibson's moderation of the second presidential debate?

[wildflower]

(Edited)

That is, Charlie Gibson's moderation of the debate btw. Kerry and Bush on Friday, October 8.

In the beginning, I believe Gibson said he would enforce the campaign's self-created rules, but do so politely. Did he?

And did he show any bias?

[renegade000]

1. it was acceptable

jim lehrer was the best, and the vice-presidential moderator was just bad...

[wildflower]

3. Agree, Jim Lehrer was definitely the best. n/t

[glarius]

2. Since Gibson had to be wondering when Bush was going to lunge at him

he did a pretty good job!....hahaha

[GR]

4. You Didn't Mention Gibson's Biggest Failing....

Ralph Nader exposed it...Gibson said by far the majority of the questions were on domestic policy, yet he allotted half of the debate to Iraq....that was his biggest failing but it doesn't fit in any of your poll categories.

[wildflower]

5. I updated to give the option of using another criterion; let me know

what you think. And how do you think you'd grade him based on that?

(I gave him a B. I was bothered when he didn't allow Kerry a rebuttal.)

-wildflower

[No2W2004]

14. Gibson said he didn't have a choice

he was on Nightline and said even though he knew most of the questions were domestic issues, the debate teams said half the debate HAD to be about Iraq. Gibson himself expressed regret about it.

As far as the question, Gibson was there to enforce the debate rules as the audience was asking the questions. He let Bush bully him at least twice in order to follow up when Gibson was ready to move on.

[Orangepeel]

15. he was required to do that, I believe

the first debate was on foreign policy, the third on domestic policy and the second was supposed to be evenly split.

in some article where Gibson says that the majority of questions were on domestic policy, he laments that he had to allot half the debate to foreign policy.

And how would Ralph Nader "expose" this? If Gibson hadn't said anything, how would he know?

[xxqqqzme]

6. feeling generous - B

not as good as Lehrer but better than awful Iffel

[MADem]

7. The very moment

...that weecowboy LUNGED at Charlie, and Charlie recoiled like that prisoner on his knees in his orange jumpsuit being threatened by a dog at Abu Gharib, I was not expecting much in the way of fairness. Charlie had been terrorized and neutralized at that point. It didn't matter much anyway...Bush ignored the questions (e.g. Q. Name three things you've done wrong? A. The war in Iraq WAS RIGHT!!!!). Weewee came off like a hyperaggressive, hyperactive, twitchy little shit....but then, what else is new?

[donkeyotay]

8. LOL

"...that weecowboy LUNGED at Charlie, and Charlie recoiled like that prisoner on his knees in his orange jumpsuit being threatened by a dog at Abu Gharib..." Yes, to get top score Charlie would have had to spring to his feet and spray his attacker with a pressurized can of pesticide or mace. But other than that, he did fairly well.

His bias came before, as GR said in post #4: this debate was supposed to be on domestic issues.

[TrustingDog]

9. the lungeing of the Bush should have been better handled by him.

he looked like a helpless useless ineffectual idiot in those few seconds.

[Ranec]

10. The best way to handle it is to make the president look like a mad dog.

And I think that was accomplished.

[Ranec]

11. He didn't handle the rebuttals well, but good overall.

I think he overall did a good job of handling the debate.

He didn't write the questions so he shouldn't get too much credit, but he did pick them and the order.

I don't blame him for using half the time on foreign policy and half the time on domestic. I think that is a reasonable split. The townhall aspect was always a sham. Neither candidate wanted a completely unscripted moment, and I certainly didn't want some long passionate plea in the guise of a question.

My only beef was how he tried to control the 30 second responses. Neither candidate was interested. Kerry handle it well by ignoring his question and saying what needed to be said. W just blew a gasket--"BLAIR!"

I'm looking forward to the next one.

[amazona]

12. a poor showing but i felt sorry for him

What are you going to do if the President of the most powerful in the country in the world is a rude S.O.B. and refuses to play by the rules? It is incumbent upon the powerful person in that situation to bend over backward to be courteous, as the moderator has no real authority to enforce the rules. I mean, what is he going to do? Tell Chimpy's mommy he's been bad? Cut the mike? Bush put Gibson in a ****ty situation.

[wildflower]

13. He should have...

...yelled, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" and cut his mike.

Oh, I forgot he's not from Fox... :)

But seriously...I wonder what Jim Lehrer would have done. Somehow I can picture him calmly repeating the rule and asking the president to wait his turn. But who knows. * just wasn't having any of it.

-wildflower

[DemonFighterLives]

16. I didn't see a question like

Why is B*sh so wishy washy?

[greekspeak]

17. He gets a 3 letter grade reduction just for letting Shrub trample him

Shrub pretended like Gibson didn't exist. He was a doormat, not a moderator. Kerry also got more hardballs than Shrub.

[sunnybrook]

18. Charlie Gibson

I thought Charlie Gibson was ok, not great. He let Bush off too easily for interrupting, etc... Audience members seemed extremely intimidated of Bush. Also, I live in St. Louis and go to Washington University (I was on campus but did not have tickets to the debate). The most offensive thing that Gibson did was in a quote that made the weekend paper (St. Louis Post Dispatch). He stated to Richard Gephardt that "that should have been you" up there! At least that was reported in the paper.

[atommom]

19. Would have liked to see him enforce the rules better,

especially during the wee-wee cowboy's little tantrums. That wasn't appropriate behavior, and * deserved to be called on it. But I agree, he was still better than Ifill.

[fob]

20. I gave him an F, because one of his duties was the order of the questions

and he saved those social/culture war firebombs for the end after bush*s meds kicked in.