I doubt that too many of you know who Ezra Klein is. Klein used to be a frequent guest on MSNBC and wrote for the Washington Post blog. When the WaPo refused to back Klein in his own website, he left and founded Vox, another of those far left sites that supposedly reports and comments on the news. After the GOP debate the other night on CNBC was such a disaster for the liberal media, Klein decided to go in full defense mode. The problem for Klein, however, is that there was no honest way to defend the conduct of the CNBC moderators. As a result, Klein just decided to lie.
Here is the essence of Klein's response to the debate:
Cruz's attack on the moderators was smart politics — but it was almost precisely backwards. The questions in the CNBC debate, though relentlessly tough, were easily the most substantive of the debates so far. And the problem for Republicans is that substantive questions about their policy proposals end up sounding like hostile attacks — but that's because the policy proposals are ridiculous, not because the questions are actually unfair.
So there is Klein's big point. The questions were tough but SUBSTANTIVE and that made them sound hostile. Because Klein's position is so clearly dishonest and just plain wrong, I went back and got the questions that the moderators had asked prior to Ted Cruz's comments. Here they are:
1. What's you biggest weakness?
2. Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?
3. That is, you had some very strong words to say yesterday about what’s happening in your party and what you’re hearing from the two gentlemen we’ve just heard from. Would you repeat it?
Here is the essence of Klein's response to the debate:
Cruz's attack on the moderators was smart politics — but it was almost precisely backwards. The questions in the CNBC debate, though relentlessly tough, were easily the most substantive of the debates so far. And the problem for Republicans is that substantive questions about their policy proposals end up sounding like hostile attacks — but that's because the policy proposals are ridiculous, not because the questions are actually unfair.
So there is Klein's big point. The questions were tough but SUBSTANTIVE and that made them sound hostile. Because Klein's position is so clearly dishonest and just plain wrong, I went back and got the questions that the moderators had asked prior to Ted Cruz's comments. Here they are:
1. What's you biggest weakness?
2. Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?
3. That is, you had some very strong words to say yesterday about what’s happening in your party and what you’re hearing from the two gentlemen we’ve just heard from. Would you repeat it?
4. Why not slow down, get a few more things done first or least finish what you start?
5. Ben Bernanke, who was appointed Fed chairman by your brother, recently wrote a book in which he said he no longer considers himself a Republican because the Republican Party has given in to know- nothingism. Is that why you’re having a difficult time in this race?
These are the exact words used by the moderators, taken from the transcript of the debate. Klein says that these are questions about "policy proposals". They're not. Questions 2 and 4 are just personal attacks on Trump and Rubio. Question 5 is an attack on the GOP but not about policy. Question 3 is actually a request for Kasich to repeat a personal attack on two other candidates. And Question 1, that's just asking "what's wrong with you?" No fair or honest person could ever describe these questions as about policy proposals.
The dishonest attack from Klein is yet another illustration of something that Marco Rubio said at the debate: the media is, for the most part, the SuperPAC of Hillary Clinton. America needs to remember this.
No comments:
Post a Comment