Conservative Blogger
Thursday, October 29, 2015
CNBC moderators repeatedly booed as candidates Trump, others bash ‘nasty’ questions
The CNBC debate started late and lame, and then the punches started flying.
Several candidates had very strong outings, but I must say, some of the moderators’ questions came off as downright snide, bordering on insults. One question after another was just loaded, worded to denigrate the candidates.
No wonder Ted Cruz got a big cheer from the Boulder audience when he attacked the questioners and called the debate a case study in mainstream media bias.
I’m in favor of tough and provocative questions. The Fox moderators asked tough questions. CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked tough questions. The CNBC moderators sounded condescending.
This surprised me. The network has good journalists. I thought if anything the focus on the economy might slide into dullness. But its team played into the hands of those who think the media are unfair to Republicans.
It got so bad that “Mad Money” madman Jim Cramer and Tea Party inspiration Rick Santelli sounded restrained by comparison.
After a throwaway query about biggest weaknesses, John Harwood, who also writes for the New York Times, asked Donald Trump if he wasn’t running a “comic-book version” of a campaign. Trump pivoted away from the “not very nice” question, but Harwood hammered him again: His tax plan, according to experts, had as much chance of working as The Donald flying away from the podium.
Carl Quintanilla was dismissive toward Marco Rubio by calling him a “young man in a hurry.” This was part of a long question about why he was missing many Senate votes, that ended with a preachy tone why he didn’t wait in line for his turn to run for president. Really?
Rubio punched back by saying the GOP establishment wanted him to wait, and denouncing Florida’s Sun-Sentinel (which called on him to vote more or resign) for liberal bias, since the paper hadn’t made a similar call when Democrat Bob Graham ran in 2004.
The exchange provided Jeb Bush with his one big moment in the debate, a chance to smack his fellow Floridian for supposedly not showing up for work. But Rubio effectively responded by saying someone must have convinced the former governor he had to attack Rubio.
Becky Quick asked Carly Fiorina a negative question about getting fired at Hewlett-Packard, which is fair, but rather than breaking new ground, she simply asked why the stock had plunged during her tenure. Fiorina said the Nasdaq had dropped 80 percent.
Quintanilla actually got booed during a series of questions to Ben Carson about his connection to a controversial medical supplement maker. When the doctor said the firm had put his picture on its home page without his permission, Quintanilla shot back: “Does that not speak to your vetting process or judgment in any way?” The audience unloaded.
Quick seemed befuddled when Trump challenged the premise of her question on immigration.
“Where did I read this and come up with this?” she asked.
“I don’t know, you people write this stuff,” Trump replied.
Quick wound up apologizing, but many minutes later, she found the quote (calling Rubio the personal senator of Mark Zuckerberg) that Trump had disputed.
Anyone can make a mistake, but how do you not have the backup research at hand?
The crowd also booed Harwood when he invited Mike Huckabee to slam Trump by asking whether The Donald has the “moral authority” to unite the country. Huckabee deflected it with a joke, and Trump accused Harwood of “such a nasty question.”
As the Colorado night wore on, the debate’s focus often seemed to shift from the economy to the press. When Trump was railing against Super PACs, Rubio declared that the Democrats have a Super PAC called the mainstream media. He cited the positive reports of Hillary Clinton’s House Benghazi testimony (which some conservative commentators and even GOP candidates did say was a good day for her).
And Cruz may have overreached in comparing CNBC’s questions to those asked at the Democratic debate, since that event was handled by CNN.
Rubio may have had the most breakout moments, some of them sprinkled with humor. Cruz, Fiorina, Kasich and Chris Christie had a few. Bush failed to make his mark. Trump and Carson did nothing to hurt themselves.
But my takeaway is that the candidates were the most effective and impassioned when they bashed the media—and that CNBC gave them plenty of ammunition.
Click for more Media Buzz.
Watchdog: Federal security force has more cars than officers, wastes millions
The security force that protects federal buildings has more SUVs than officers, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) watchdog, which found $2.5 million wasted each year due to mismanagement of its vehicle fleet.
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) had 101 more law enforcement vehicles than officers last year, and spent taxpayer funding to upgrade its SUVs with bike racks, the new audit released by the Office of Inspector General found.
"FPS is not managing its fleet effectively," the OIG said. "FPS did not properly justify that its current fleet is necessary to carry out its operational mission."
"Specifically, FPS did not justify the need for: more vehicles than officers; administrative vehicles; larger sport utility vehicles; home-to-work miles in one region; and discretionary equipment added to vehicles," they said.
The FPS has a fleet of 1,169 vehicles, the vast majority of which are SUVs. The fleet cost $10.7 million to lease last year.
"In [fiscal year] FY 2014, FPS had 101 more law enforcement vehicles than full-time equivalent law enforcement positions," the audit found.
The OIG noted that the agency does have a need for spare vehicles when an officer's vehicle breaks down, but questioned the large number of excessive vehicles in the fleet. The FPS could save $1,071,500 each year if it got rid of its spare vehicles.
US special forces reportedly in covert combat for months against ISIS
U.S. special operations forces reportedly have carried out several covert combat missions against ISIS over the past year, contrary to the Pentagon's insistence that operations like last week's raid of an ISIS-held prison in northern Iraq was a "unique" circumstance.
Bloomberg View reported that a special operations task force staffs an operations center in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to support such missions. The report, which cited U.S. and Kurdish officials, claimed that the task force has worked in recent months to identify and locate senior leaders of ISIS. Members of the group also participated in last week's raid, during which Army Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler was killed. Wheeler became the first American to die in combat since the launch of anti-ISIS operations last year.
At a Pentagon briefing in Baghdad Tuesday, spokesman Col. Peter Warren answered a question about whether U.S. forces in Iraq were in combat against ISIS in no uncertain terms.
"We're in combat," Warren said. "I thought I made that pretty clear ... That is why we all carry guns. That's why we all get combat patches when we leave here, that's why we all receive [an] immediate danger badge. So, of course we're in combat."
Last week, Cook said the raid on the ISIS prison in the town of Hawija was "consistent with our counter-ISIL effort to train, advise and assist Iraqi forces", using a different acronym for the terror group. He also said the rescue was a "unique" circumstance, but declined to say that it was the only time U.S. forces have engaged in a form of ground combat in Iraq. Instead, he noted that U.S. troops are "allowed to defend themselves, and also defend partner forces, and to protect against the loss of innocent life."
Cook's previous comments had kept with a general avoidance on the part of administration officials to admit that U.S. troops were in combat. However, on Friday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said while discussing the raid, "This is combat, things are complicated."
Bloomberg View reported that in addition to the special operations task force, the operations center also contains so-called Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, who work with U.S. allies and the Iraqis to coordinate combat flights against ISIS over Iraq. A third group, from the Marine Special Operations Command, is in charge of training Kurdish counter-terrorism forces.
On Tuesday, Carter testified on Capitol Hill that that the military plans a "higher and heavier rate of strikes" against ISIS targets. Separately, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that President Obama is considering proposals to move U.S. troops closer to the front lines in the fight.
On Wednesday, retired Gen. John Allen told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that as the U.S. continues to build up its military options in Syrian, European nations might consider combat operations to battle extremists.
Allen said the U.S. military recently began asking its European allies to join it at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey where the U.S. is being allowed to launch fighter aircraft and surveillance missions in Syria.
"I expect that as time goes on, and as more opportunity becomes available to us, we may well see our European partners become more kinetically involved in Syria," Allen said.
"There may be opportunities in the south as well as in the north where our European coalition partners could in fact play an important role, and I'm thinking special operations," Allen said, adding that additional details could only be provided in a classified setting.
'Extremely disappointing': RNC head slams CNBC debate moderators
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus had harsh words for the CNBC moderators of Wednesday night's GOP debate, calling their performance "extremely disappointing."
"While I was proud of our candidates and the way they handled tonight’s debate, the performance by the CNBC moderators ... did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters," Priebus said in a statement. "Our diverse field of talented and exceptionally qualified candidates did their best to share ideas for how to reinvigorate the economy and put Americans back to work despite deeply unfortunate questioning from CNBC."
Priebus restated his criticism on Twitter.
Priebus was not the only Republican to take issue with moderators John Harwood, Carl Quintanilla and Becky Quick, as several candidates expressed frustration with the questions posed to them.
"The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said early on.
"This is not a cage match," he added. "How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?"
Others complained the moderators' questions were hostile and based on inaccurate premises.
"That's not true," retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson objected to one moderator's depiction of his tax plans. "When we put all the facts down, you'll be able to see that it's not true, it works out very well."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took issue with one moderator's interruption. "Do you want me to answer or do you want to answer?" he said. "Because, I've got to tell you the truth, even in New Jersey what you're doing is called rude."
In his closing statement Donald Trump chastised the network for trying to extend the debate past the two-hour mark, which he and Carson had teamed up to stop.
"In about two minutes I renegotiated it down to two hours so we could get the hell out of here," he bragged.
Trump, who had predicted the debate would be "unfair" hours before it started, told CNBC after he walked offstage that he felt the Republicans had been treated far differently than the Democrats during their first faceoff earlier this month.
"If you looked at Hillary's deal a couple of weeks ago, the questions were much softer, much easier, much nicer. It was like a giant lovefest," he said. "That did not take place over here. This was pretty tough."
Bush campaign manager Danny Diaz confirmed that he had expressed displeasure to a CNBC producer about the debate.
NBC spokesman Brian Steel responded with a one-sentence statement: "People who want to be president of the United States should be able to answer tough questions."
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