January 19, 2012
Someone at CNN apparently decided that tonight's Republican Presidential Debate could be solely handled by John King. Boy, was that a mistake!
Newt Gingrich brought an admittedly biased audience to its virtually unprecedented feet in its excoriation of King and his CNN bosses.
King went on to dig his grave even deeper by asking all the candidates to comment on his epically inappropriate question. This proved to be a good litmus test for the other candidates. While Santorum and Paul shamelessly seized on the opportunity to trot out the wife and kiddies for political advantage, Mitt Romney, whose stellar family can stack up against all the others in grand fashion, took the high ground and provided the evening's most memorable moment by telling John Boy to get on with his job.
Later, King showed that he could not keep track of the proceedings even as well as the audience. His almost exclusion of Paul from discussion of a medical issue showed that King had been so shaken by his initial gaffe that he was totally out of it. And later, a candidate noted that a key issue had not been addressed at all.
And throughout, King, instead of retreating to, or under, a desk as he should have, found it appropriate to strut back and forth in front of the candidates like a cock on the walk. Just whom did he think this occasion was all about?
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Lezlie
unemployment
foreclosures
the national debt
troops mired in foreign wars
50% inner city high school dropout rate
the only guy who even came CLOSE to addressing the economic issues was Cain - and it was apparent after a moments thought that his 9-9-9 plan not only wouldn't solve the problem, but would create an entire NEW federal bureaucracy to administer the national sales tax.
rated
John King screwed up big time; he played the game like a rookie cornerback getting burned for a half-dozen touchdowns. If he was not on drugs or booze, he should be demoted to human-interest reporter; if he was on drugs or booze he should be fired.
King does not belong at CNN…he should change his party affiliation and go to work for FOX.
The candidates, particularly Gingrich, and to a slightly lesser extent Romney, handled the situation like troopers. They got as much mileage out of the gaff as could be gotten…and gave the in-house audience plenty to cheer about. The house audience played its part to a “T.” We can only hope that no Republican stalwarts watching on television died during the telecast, because there are few funeral directors who would be able to erase the smile on the corpse cleanly enough to make the body look casket somber.
As a commented on L in the Southeast's piece on this, the audience reminded me of listening to the Jerry Springer show. A bit telling, don't ya think??
If you'll recall, I moderated a debate back in New Hampshire in June. There were seven candidates then. We have four tonight. But when this came up, we talked about it briefly, and then I asked, is this fair game, an issue in this campaign, or is it case closed?
Mr. Cain, who was with us at the time, said case closed, and I paused. No one else took the opportunity to speak up.
If it was case closed then, why is a legitimate issue now?
GINGRICH: You just said nobody else spoke. So nobody else said, yes, it's case closed. I mean, Herman Cain said it was case closed, the rest of us, it wasn't a particular issue we wanted to fight that night.
I mean, we are allowed to run our own campaigns, John. It's not an automatic requirement that we fit in your debate schedule.
You, good sir gordo, and me, myself and I, are finally, and totally on this one, in complete agreement! Can I get an Amen?!!!
CNN's lineup is milquetoast with a side of dopey. King is an over his head and inept stuttering nincompoop. You are correct that he never recovered, which would have been duck soup- just quickly say no, no, no Mr. Speaker, it is your personal life that is all over the headlines and this is not ABC, duck soup- unless you are twinky-dink King. Anderson Cooper is the Herman Cain of news- it is really just a Vanderbilt reality show. Wolf Blitzer is the most bizarre, unattractive, and incredibly annoying anchors in the history of media. He looks like Primitive Pete the caveman from auto shop. Erin Burnett is an attempt to copy Fox, but, instead they got a real Wall St. girl who can't hide her actual, not scripted, bias.
All in all their entire team is horrendous on balance, a pathetic joke trying to pretend, and they aren't, to be liberal, then to try and copy Fox by kissing up to the Tea Party and hiring purty chicks.
Don Lemmon, and Shephard Smith, are the two best Cable anchors. What would be cool is if they both jumped to MSNBC! That would just rock Gordo!- n'est ce pas?
Aloha Kakou