The 2nd Thread For 10/12/12: Celebrating Centrist Media Once Again

Even before the Paul Ryan 90 minute lie fest was over, friends and good colleagues of yours' truly on Twitter were championing Martha Raddatz as a great moderator.

It was quite alarming all the way, as people were already bestowing praise to Raddatz just because she asked follow up questions to Ryan's mendacity. Instead, what would have been the best thing for her to do, as any moderator of any gender, race, or whatever should do, is to correct any out right half-truth, quarter truth, or just flat out lie that Ryan or even Biden would say.

Unfortunately, Raddatz never at one point corrected Ryan for his blatant misinformation, leaving that job to Biden and creating the obvious centrist media narrative today: "It was a fiery back and forth debate." Thankfully, the CBS snap poll blew up the narrative that all the news organizations, especially CNN of course, wanted to paint as the debate being a "tie."

As always, one Duncan Black has the right, proper perspective on Raddatz's moderation:

And it is supported by the terrific Susie Madrak.

Anyone could be better than Lehrer last week. But the disturbing thing though was that Raddatz herself probably thought Lehrer did a great job last week. Morning Joe, Sean Hannity sure did, and I bet most inside the Beltway thought Lehrer did a great job (see Peggy Noonan and Mary Matalin last Sunday).

But that is how low the bar has been set, in American debate moderation and in American journalism overall.