The reaction to last night's 'commander in chief' forum on NBC was absolutely surreal.
Matt Lauer actually had the temerity, just for a few minutes, to question Hillary Clinton like an actual journalist and to actually allow a questioner to be critical of her. And he's in a world of sh*t because of it. Look at these headlines:
CNN "Behind the scenes, NBC execs concede Matt Lauer forum performance was "disaster"
New York Times "Matt Lauer Loses the War in a Battle Between the Candidates"
Jonathon Chait,New York Magazine "Matt Lauer’s Pathetic Interview of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Is the Scariest Thing I’ve Seen in This Campaign"
There's tons more, but you get the drift.
He should have known better, really. Remember how the press crucified Bob Schieffer for being even handed during that first Obama-Romney debate in 2012? Schieffer,of course was indeed a fairly Left leaning Democrat, but he came from an older generation where there were still some journalistic ethics and standards.
The infamous Candy Crowley, who 'moderated' the second 2012 debate learned from Schieffer's faux pas and did everything she could short of pepper spraying Romney to make sure Obama came out looking good. Rest assured that ABC's Lester Holt, who's 'moderating' the first debate has taken note of Lauer's gang stomping and will behave the same way Crowley did.The presidential debates will be custom designed to attack Trump and destroy him at all costs, and to let Mrs. Clinton to slither into the Oval Office.
Actually, Matt Lauer was relatively easy on Hillary. Yes, he actually asked a few questions that stung a little, but he let her get away with blatant falsehoods.
For instance,Hillary made a big point last night that the stuff she was spreading around to unauthorized people via her illegal private server 'wasn't labeled classified.' (This after just a few days before she told the eFBI she didn't remember her briefing on how to handle classified material!)
Now, I didn't expect a Clintonista like Matt Lauer to challenge her on anything, but the FBI report showed that there were numerous e-mails from Mrs. Clinton to Cheryl Mills and Huma referring to removing 'classified tags' from e-mails she planned to share with unauthorized people and asking if they had done it yet!
And here's another point Lauer should of brought up but of course, didn't. If you're a high government official getting classified briefings and you share that information via a regular ol' email with an unauthorized person in exchange for a donation to a scam 'foundation', a six figure speaking fee for your disreputable spouse or a nice campaign contribution or other quid pro quo, you are trafficking in classified information.
Which of course, is exactly what Mrs. Clinton did. She's simply a corrupt felon who got away with it because the Obama DOJ let the FBI know that they weren't going to prosecute. FBI Director Comey's sickening nonsense about 'intent' was sheer bolshoi.
The illegal server itself shows intent. And when someone wipes an illegal server using software like Bleachbit AFTER the story breaks and when this same evidence has been subpoenaed, that shows intent too...for anyone but the Clintons.
Matt Lauer, of course, knew better than to 'fact check' Mrs. Clinton. But he made an even bigger error when he let someone with an actual hard ball question slip through, a vet with years of experience handling classified intel that told her that if he had done what she did, he would have been prosecuted and jailed. Her response was, well, not really a response at all.
He was the only one who questioned Mrs. Clinton on the subject or who even did more than toss her a softball. And if you watch, you'll see her glare briefly at Lauer and then look at the vet, write his name down after the question and hand it to one of her Secret service guards.
Then there's the matter of Mrs. Clinton's flesh colored earpiece, something Matt Lauer apparently didn't notice...or maybe chose not to:
NYPD officers involved with the NBC forum’s security detail recognized it instantly. They confirmed that Clinton was wearing an ‘inductive earpiece,” used by actors in Broadway shows so they can be prompted on their lines and receive cues off-stage from directors. They're wireless, not like the ones used by the police, the FBI and the Secret Service.
Mrs. Clinton has apparently been using this for quite some time as WikiLeaks confirmed with this email to Mrs. Clinton from Huma Abedin, her close personal aide:
As actor James Wood tweeted, 'She can't even #lie without help from a gaggle of other #liars through an earpiece' @HillaryClinton #HillarysEarpiece pic.twitter.com/YIMVd72SjH
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) September 8, 2016
Actually, what probably happened is that except for the one questioner who slipped through, the rest were rehearsed beforehand and Mrs. Clinton just needed prompting on her scripted answers.The media won't raise that question, but Trump should at the next debate. Either she's deaf, or she's being coached from off stage, and I think we all know which it is.
And Donald Trump? Lauer was actually tougher on him than he was on Mrs. Clinton. He got almost twice the amount of questions she did, and none of them were softballs. Lauer made a valiant try and getting Trump to slip up but failed utterly. trump refused to rise to the bait, and simply repeated what he's said all along, that he will defeat ISIS but that he's not giving away his ideas on strategy on live TV, but will consult with his military advisers and come up with the best ideas, whether there his, someone else's or a combination of the two. Contrast that with Mrs. Clinton, who informed ISIS, Iran and a whole lot of other bad actors on national television that we would newer send troops to Iraq under any circumstances.
I guess she learned from her old boss, President Barack Hussein Obama who informed the Taliban as well as any Afghans trying to decide whom to side with exactly when we were leaving. And they say Donald Trump doesn't know anything about foreign policy?
Two other things Donald Trump said that bear mention. He openly criticized some of the generals President Obama has kept in place who will go along with his farcical agenda and rules of engagement that have cost American lives...As opposed to some of our best and most successful field commanders that have been forced into retirement. And that purge includes not just generals and admirals but even extends down to junior officers, as my regular readers know. Barack Obama has played politics with our military in order to 'transform it' just as he has everything else.
And when challenged about Vladimir Putin, Trump said he thinks he can get along with Russia on a great many issues of mutual concern while keeping our national interests in mind. That's something Mrs. Clinton and her boss failed miserably at with the so-called 'reset.'
Fact - Putin is one of the few world leaders fighting jihad right now, and we will need Russia's help to defeat it,just as they will need ours. When Trump said 'imagine how great it would be if the U.S. and Russia cooperated in defeating ISIS' he was entirely correct.
I'll leave you to decide who sounded like a real commander-in-chief. The military has already spoken, and by a huge margin.
So have the people who watched it.
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