MANCHESTER, New Hampshire â Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012 and a supporter of former Sen. Scott Brownâs campaign, decried an effort by the liberal media to falsely smear Brown during last nightâs final New Hampshire Senate debate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
âYou know I think itâs unfortunate but in some cases moderators hope to become part of the story,â Romney said on Laura Ingrahamâs radio program. âObviously that furthers their career and makes a lot of people talk about them. And people who are on their side are very pleased about it and give them a lot of kudos. Look, the debate commissioners are going to have to do a better job to make sure moderators follow the rules and donât themselves become part of the debates. But in the final analysis I think people vote based on who they think is going to help them and their family and their country in the best way, so I donât give too much weight to these kinds of snafus in debates but nonetheless itâs already been cleared up.â
Ingraham compared the mistaken questionâwhere WMURâs James Pindell falsely told Brown that New Hampshireâs Sullivan County is not north of the stateâs capitol Concordâto CNNâs Candy Crowley false assertion to Romney during a debate between him and President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race about the Benghazi terrorist attack.
âWell of course the moderator James Pindell from local WMUR had to apologize,â Ingraham said. âBut it reminded me of the Candy Crowley moment in your debate, where itâs like is she actually part of the Obama re-election team or what? I mean she had a transcript ready and going right to that deal is just ridiculous.â
While CNN has defended Crowley, and she has defended herself, for that episode, she has somewhat admitted since then that she was wrong. But the damage was done after the debate.
Romneyâs criticism of the way the Brown-Shaheen debate was handled comes as everyone who helped in the false attack on Brownâwith the exception of ABC Newsâ George Stephanopoulos, the debateâs chief moderatorâhas apologized to Sen. Brown.
âABC is declining to comment,â ABC News spokeswoman Heather Riley told Breitbart News.
Pindell apologized to Brown on Twitter and on statewide television on his network on Thursday night. The Huffington Post, which originally backed the false attack through a hit piece from reporter Sabrina Siddiqui, has also apologized to Brown and the public for getting its facts wrong as well. Huffington Post politics editor Sam Stein issued that outletâs apology in a statement to Breitbart News.
Stephanopoulos, the chief moderator of the debate, has not however said anything about thisâand has not, as the senior most newsman on the panel, apologized for the false attack on Brown. By not saying anything, Stephanopoulos is refusing to back the public apologies of all the others who mishandled the debate and post-debate coverage.
And while Stephanopoulos and ABC News are refusing to comment or publicly back the apologies to Brown and New Hampshire voters, National Public Radioâs Cokie Robertsâa longtime regular panelist to Stephanopoulosâ This Week ABC News Sunday showâhas criticized the moderators of the debate for their handling of this.
Roberts said on MSNBCâafter Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough roundly criticized the moderatorsâthat âthis is why people hate the press.â
âHaving that little guy just sort of ask that same little question over and over again like that and he was just trying to be so smart, and I think he [Scott Brown] handled very it well,â Roberts said. âHe didnât go the Christie route and say âenough with Sullivan County.â He said âno, with all due respect,â and he didnât get flustered by it. That was the pointâthe point was to fluster him and show him as a carpetbagger. I think that is the biggest strike against him [Brown]. But it ended up being a much bigger strike against the member of my trade.â
Stephanopoulos failed to disclose to the public before or during the debate that he has several personal conflicts of interest because of his longtime personal and political ties to both Shaheen herself and to Shaheenâs top campaign adviser Mandy Grunwald.
Stephanopoulos personally worked with Grunwald to get Bill Clinton elected to the presidency in 1992 as part of a close-knit group of Democratic operatives.
In addition to that, in 1996âvideo captured by C-SPAN showsâPresident Clinton sent Stephanopoulos, then a âsenior adviserâ to the White House, to New Hampshire to accept the endorsement of Clintonâs re-election campaign by then state Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, among others.
âWhat a way to return to New Hampshire surrounded by all these women, Iâm only sorry I couldnât come on Valentineâs Day,â a smiling Stephanopoulos said as he accepted emissary Shaheenâs and othersâ endorsement for Clintonâs re-election.
Riley, ABC Newsâ spokeswoman, and Stephanopoulos himself have not responded to multiple requests for comment and several specific questions from Breitbart News about those conflicts of interest over the past several days and in the wake of the debate. But Riley did acknowledge that Stephanopoulos himself received Breitbart Newsâ press requests before the debate, saying in an email that she handles press requests for Stephanopoulos and that âGeorge just sent me an email you sent him.â
That email had questions for Stephanopoulos about both the 1996 video and his connections to Shaheenâs operative Grunwald.
This mishandling of the Brown-Shaheen debate and the post-debate refusal by Stephanopoulos to back the apologies by his co-moderator could have massive ramifications heading into 2016âs presidential cycle as the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the various GOP presidential candidates start setting debate schedules. Stephanopoulos is widely viewed as having created the âwar on womenâ attack that helped the incumbent Democrat Obama beat Republican Romney by inserting contraceptionâan issue no one in politics was discussing at the timeâinto a GOP primary debate.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a likely 2016 GOP candidate whoâs been at the top of many polls for the race, criticized Stephanopoulos in an interview with Breitbart News before the Brown-Shaheen debate.
âI donât think this would be the first time his [Stephanopoulosâ] impartiality has been questioned,â Paul said in the interview. âIf you go back to the previous presidential debates, many people have brought up that the whole questioning about birth control was originated as a campaign theme by Stephanopoulos and thereâs questions about whether that was done in coordination with Democrats. Itâs always hard to have someone be perceived as an objective arbiter on a debate if they spent most of their life as a partisan.â
Before the debate, Brown told Fox News he had âconcernsâ about Stephanopoulosâ political ties to Shaheen through his Clinton operation days. Shaheen, when asked by Breitbart News to comment on that, refused to do so. âNo, no comment,â she said
Stephanopoulos ABC News Refuse to Apologize for False Scott Brown Attack
âYou know I think itâs unfortunate but in some cases moderators hope to become part of the story,â Romney said on Laura Ingrahamâs radio program. âObviously that furthers their career and makes a lot of people talk about them. And people who are on their side are very pleased about it and give them a lot of kudos. Look, the debate commissioners are going to have to do a better job to make sure moderators follow the rules and donât themselves become part of the debates. But in the final analysis I think people vote based on who they think is going to help them and their family and their country in the best way, so I donât give too much weight to these kinds of snafus in debates but nonetheless itâs already been cleared up.â
Ingraham compared the mistaken questionâwhere WMURâs James Pindell falsely told Brown that New Hampshireâs Sullivan County is not north of the stateâs capitol Concordâto CNNâs Candy Crowley false assertion to Romney during a debate between him and President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race about the Benghazi terrorist attack.
âWell of course the moderator James Pindell from local WMUR had to apologize,â Ingraham said. âBut it reminded me of the Candy Crowley moment in your debate, where itâs like is she actually part of the Obama re-election team or what? I mean she had a transcript ready and going right to that deal is just ridiculous.â
While CNN has defended Crowley, and she has defended herself, for that episode, she has somewhat admitted since then that she was wrong. But the damage was done after the debate.
Romneyâs criticism of the way the Brown-Shaheen debate was handled comes as everyone who helped in the false attack on Brownâwith the exception of ABC Newsâ George Stephanopoulos, the debateâs chief moderatorâhas apologized to Sen. Brown.
âABC is declining to comment,â ABC News spokeswoman Heather Riley told Breitbart News.
Pindell apologized to Brown on Twitter and on statewide television on his network on Thursday night. The Huffington Post, which originally backed the false attack through a hit piece from reporter Sabrina Siddiqui, has also apologized to Brown and the public for getting its facts wrong as well. Huffington Post politics editor Sam Stein issued that outletâs apology in a statement to Breitbart News.
Stephanopoulos, the chief moderator of the debate, has not however said anything about thisâand has not, as the senior most newsman on the panel, apologized for the false attack on Brown. By not saying anything, Stephanopoulos is refusing to back the public apologies of all the others who mishandled the debate and post-debate coverage.
And while Stephanopoulos and ABC News are refusing to comment or publicly back the apologies to Brown and New Hampshire voters, National Public Radioâs Cokie Robertsâa longtime regular panelist to Stephanopoulosâ This Week ABC News Sunday showâhas criticized the moderators of the debate for their handling of this.
Roberts said on MSNBCâafter Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough roundly criticized the moderatorsâthat âthis is why people hate the press.â
âHaving that little guy just sort of ask that same little question over and over again like that and he was just trying to be so smart, and I think he [Scott Brown] handled very it well,â Roberts said. âHe didnât go the Christie route and say âenough with Sullivan County.â He said âno, with all due respect,â and he didnât get flustered by it. That was the pointâthe point was to fluster him and show him as a carpetbagger. I think that is the biggest strike against him [Brown]. But it ended up being a much bigger strike against the member of my trade.â
Stephanopoulos failed to disclose to the public before or during the debate that he has several personal conflicts of interest because of his longtime personal and political ties to both Shaheen herself and to Shaheenâs top campaign adviser Mandy Grunwald.
Stephanopoulos personally worked with Grunwald to get Bill Clinton elected to the presidency in 1992 as part of a close-knit group of Democratic operatives.
In addition to that, in 1996âvideo captured by C-SPAN showsâPresident Clinton sent Stephanopoulos, then a âsenior adviserâ to the White House, to New Hampshire to accept the endorsement of Clintonâs re-election campaign by then state Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, among others.
âWhat a way to return to New Hampshire surrounded by all these women, Iâm only sorry I couldnât come on Valentineâs Day,â a smiling Stephanopoulos said as he accepted emissary Shaheenâs and othersâ endorsement for Clintonâs re-election.
Riley, ABC Newsâ spokeswoman, and Stephanopoulos himself have not responded to multiple requests for comment and several specific questions from Breitbart News about those conflicts of interest over the past several days and in the wake of the debate. But Riley did acknowledge that Stephanopoulos himself received Breitbart Newsâ press requests before the debate, saying in an email that she handles press requests for Stephanopoulos and that âGeorge just sent me an email you sent him.â
That email had questions for Stephanopoulos about both the 1996 video and his connections to Shaheenâs operative Grunwald.
This mishandling of the Brown-Shaheen debate and the post-debate refusal by Stephanopoulos to back the apologies by his co-moderator could have massive ramifications heading into 2016âs presidential cycle as the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the various GOP presidential candidates start setting debate schedules. Stephanopoulos is widely viewed as having created the âwar on womenâ attack that helped the incumbent Democrat Obama beat Republican Romney by inserting contraceptionâan issue no one in politics was discussing at the timeâinto a GOP primary debate.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a likely 2016 GOP candidate whoâs been at the top of many polls for the race, criticized Stephanopoulos in an interview with Breitbart News before the Brown-Shaheen debate.
âI donât think this would be the first time his [Stephanopoulosâ] impartiality has been questioned,â Paul said in the interview. âIf you go back to the previous presidential debates, many people have brought up that the whole questioning about birth control was originated as a campaign theme by Stephanopoulos and thereâs questions about whether that was done in coordination with Democrats. Itâs always hard to have someone be perceived as an objective arbiter on a debate if they spent most of their life as a partisan.â
Before the debate, Brown told Fox News he had âconcernsâ about Stephanopoulosâ political ties to Shaheen through his Clinton operation days. Shaheen, when asked by Breitbart News to comment on that, refused to do so. âNo, no comment,â she said
Stephanopoulos ABC News Refuse to Apologize for False Scott Brown Attack