By DEXTER DUGGAN
Hearts beat faster in Cleveland before the 17 Republican presidential candidates went at it in two nationally watched debates moderated by Fox News on August 6.
Not only the hearts of candidates and their fans, who knew their political fortunes could pivot on their performances there.
But also hearts of many others, including liberal media powerhouses all too aware that their darling Planned Parenthood recently was put on defense concerning shocking revelations by the Center for Medical Progress about PP manipulating abortions so as to reap profitable hearts, brains, lungs, and other organs from babies it kills.
By the end of the evening, there was heartbreak for many others, disappointed or perplexed by some of the network moderators’ approach. However, there was not merely relief but elation by major-media liberals who were wowed by the way the show was run, even though they weren’t running it.
Major attention went to Fox News’ “big 10” evening debate of the 10 GOP aspirants leading in the opinion polls, although they were preceded in a “happy hour” debate by seven additional Republicans lower in the polls. This story covers the “big 10” debate.
The moderators didn’t ask candidates even one question about the Planned Parenthood baby-parts scandal, or what to do about it — leaving many members of the public still in the dark about a scandal mainly hidden by dominant liberal media.
An article posted August 7 at The Federalist website noted another intriguing omission: “Why, on a day when [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell said definitively he will not force the president to shut down the government to [defund] Planned Parenthood, would you not ask about that?
In one of his debate comments, Sen. Ted Cruz went ahead anyway and said that if he’s elected president, on his first day he would rescind every illegal order issued by Barack Obama, and also ask the Department of Justice to start investigating Planned Parenthood.
And Mike Huckabee said that as president, he’d have the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments applied for the unborn — constitutional amendments providing for equal protection and due process of the law.
Some conservative national talk hosts subsequently drew attention to what they said was Fox’s slanted approach. And The Wanderer interviewed a former California conservative GOP congressman and an Arizona Tea Party leader on the same topic.
Former Cong. Robert Dornan said in an August 7 telephone interview that it was “disgustingly obvious it was a planned decision [at Fox] not to bring up the most horrifying story in the last 10 years,” the PP scandal.
Dornan said the Fox moderators’ omission of the issue was “the biggest disappointment of the night. . . . I believe it was an evil decision.”
Fox “has a line they will not cross about the moral decline of America” because the full truth wouldn’t be good for ratings, he said.
On the other hand, Fox has carried news reports about the Center for Medical Progress videos.
As fate and timing would have it, Fox News personalities had been scheduled to moderate the Cleveland debates, the first of the 2016 presidential campaign season — a hopeful attempt by the Republican National Committee to steer away from traditionally deferring to mainly liberal journalists doing the questioning, a longstanding liability to GOP candidates.
It wouldn’t be fair to suppress tough questions from Fox. But it’d be nice to have some balance from the “fair and balanced” cable operation.
For too many years Republican officials had accepted as unavoidable that their candidates must endure panels of journalists’ insinuations and accusations of racism, misogyny, and greed, while Democrat candidates could smile through softball questions about their favorite breakfast and their favorite color.
Yet even as people across the nation watched the August 6 showdown, they started blinking in disbelief. The emphasis in moderators’ questioning might as well have come from the mouths of activist liberals.
Shortly before the end of the first hour of the two-hour “big ten” debate, Ron Ludders, the chairman of a Phoenix Tea Party, announced to a packed debate-watching party at his “Arizona Project” headquarters, “I am absolutely shocked about how Fox News is handling this debate.”
Expressing his displeasure during a break in the debate action, Ludders won general agreement from others watching with him on two large screens.
During the next break, Ludders took the microphone and said, “This looks more like [liberal] MSNBC doing this than Fox.”
Ludders told The Wanderer on August 9 that he subsequently sent one of the Fox moderators, Megyn Kelly, an email saying that she seemed to have forgotten the motto of Fox News, “fair and balanced,” and that she and Fox News were both the losers.
He received no reply, Ludders said. Kelly had pounced on Donald Trump with a question about his attitude toward women.
“I’m not particularly a Trump fan. I think he’s very shallow myself,” Ludders told The Wanderer, adding that he thought Fox picked over personal issues with the candidates more than policy issues, thereby doing viewers “a huge disservice.”
But Ludders said he hoped for Trump to be in more debates, showing energy and stimulating questions.
Andrew Stiles, an editor at the Washington Free Beacon website, noted on August 7 that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was asked (by Megyn Kelly): “Would you really let a mother die rather than have an abortion, and with 83 percent of the American public in favor of a life exception, are you too out of the mainstream on this issue to win the general election?”
Stiles blogged: “It is almost farcical to suggest that a pro-choice equivalent of this question would ever be posed to a prominent Democratic candidate.”
Most other GOP presidential hopefuls also stood firmly for pro-life principles despite the questions tossed at them in the debate. Even the prickly Trump proclaimed, “I am very, very proud to say I am pro-life.”
During a post-debate interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson stated the general pro-life position that due to medical advances, an abortion to save the life of the mother virtually isn’t an issue.
“Each candidate was challenged more extensively than [Democrat presidential candidate] Hillary Clinton has been since launching her campaign,” Free Beacon editor Stiles wrote. “The first Democratic debate is scheduled for October 13, hosted by CNN. If the moderators can match the quality and tenor of the questioning on display [August 6], there might actually be worthwhile debate on the Democratic side. But don’t count on it.”
Immigration
On August 7, national radio host Rush Limbaugh said there had never been so much criticism of Fox moderators as there was over their conduct at this debate. Limbaugh added that he would have thought the “war on women” theme in the debate meant liberal George Stephanopoulos of ABC News was a moderator — but Stephanopoulos wasn’t present.
And national conservative radio host Mark Levin said on August 7 that he thought the choice of the second question of the debate had to be a decision made by Fox management, not the moderators. That was Kelly’s question about Trump’s attitude toward women.
On his August 10 program, Levin complained that the moderators asked no questions about how the future of America’s young people is being destroyed.
As is often the case with these presidential “debates,” the August 6 format mainly consisted of moderators asking individual candidates questions, not a continuing interplay among candidates.
One of the more revealing political comments occurred on the topic of illegal immigration, when Jeb Bush said the “great majority of people coming here illegally have no other option.” He said he supports a path to citizenship for them.
No other option? Open-borders Bush can’t believe Latino lands are that hopeless and incapable of development, but saying the people all must come here serves his globalist goal of erasing national sovereignty and merging North America.
Latino oligarchs and hierarchs must split their sides with laughter as they tell their countrymen to get lost because there’s nothing worth achieving in their native lands; instead, they demand that the U.S. assume full responsibility for receiving and supporting however many millions of aliens choose to ignore the border.
Trump said that if it weren’t for his own stand against illegal immigration, Fox moderator Chris Wallace wouldn’t even bring up the topic. However, Trump indicated he isn’t simply an exclusionist.
“We need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly,” Trump said, adding that he doesn’t mind if there’s “a big, beautiful door in that wall.”
Sen. Marco Rubio said the evidence is clear that the majority of people coming over now aren’t from Mexico, but people are frustrated about the continued high numbers of illegal arrivals. People who’ve been waiting 15 years to enter the legal way call his office to complain about this unfairness, Rubio said.
Worthless, Gutless Leaders
Dornan, the former California congressman, told The Wanderer that many voters welcome Trump’s rejection of the political establishment.
“Donald Trump is not the issue here, Trump and the bouffant [hairstyle]. . . . What is making Donald Trump a phenomenon is disgust . . . that [House Speaker John] Boehner and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell are worthless, gutless leaders who betrayed our mandate,” said Dornan, referring to the GOP establishment successfully campaigning as conservatives in 2014, then working hard in 2015 to pass Barack Obama’s agenda.
Citing the common sense of successful businessmen, Dornan said Trump won’t eventually run as a third-party candidate because that would split the presidential vote and give victory to the Democrats.
“He is too successful a man as a businessman, a business person. They have a business gene that is a miracle,” Dornan said, adding that although Trump is angry, “he has created more jobs than all the other 16” GOP presidential candidates.
Trump is just looking for respect, Dornan said, but “if Hillary [Clinton] gets elected, it’s all over. He will not do that” by splitting the vote in a third-party effort.
Considering the serious moral challenges the U.S. faces, Dornan told The Wanderer, “You can put the word ‘evil’ anywhere you want in my quotes. If I left it out, it was an oversight.”
Because each baby is given a guardian angel at the moment of conception, Dornan said, when a baby is aborted the angel has to go back to God to say, “I’m sorry. . . . Mission not accomplished. Give me a new assignment.”
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