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Worst moderator ever

David Gregory doesn't seem to realize he's not a candidate. He spent the first 15 minutes on the "character" issues that everybody in Massachusetts already is sick to death of. He decided that immigration is a more important issue than jobs. His toupee is too obvious.

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He also doesn't seem to remember it was a debate and that he didn't have to ratings bait for the show he's run into the ground, Meet the Press. Awful, he's a terrible awful product of the NBC GE Universal Time Warner Comcast clusterfuck.

That immigration question should have been axed (again, ratings bait: show a Hispanic and see the hick racists boo him), especially since he spent so little time on jobs. Warren tried to bring it around to there, but Gregory kept steering it away. He's terrible.

edit: my temper makes me forget my words sometimes; filled in verbs where needed.

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This wasn't an interview, it was billed as a debate. David Gregory needed to allow the candidates to respond to each other, especially on areas of disagreement.

Especially when policy, votes and economic issues came up. He cut them short to ask them a pressing question on Bobby Valentine?

NECN is kinda screwing their post coverage. They got that hack Rob Eno on, claiming Brown is independent. Why in the world would Eno support a true independent, especially looking at his site and politics.

NECN also billed an audience member they interviewed after as an independent/undecided, and she was more pro Brown than the Republican guy they talked to. Oops. Def not undecided in this race.

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Agreed, when Brown and Warren started actually debating each other and making their respective points David would interrupt them and move onto the next question before either had finished.

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Why in the world would Eno support a true independent, especially looking at his site and politics?

Because Eno is disciplined at taking in the GOP talking point du jour and regurgitating back out ad nauseum. You can actually see the national talking points appear almost verbatim in many of Eno's posts and comments in the morning well before they hit the national media grist mill, and sometimes a day or two in advance. My guess he is networked in enough that he is on a morning email distribution list.

I am sure that Eno was well-prepped on what to say post-debate before Brown and Warren took the stage.

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Don’t say Scalia. Don’t say Scalia. Don’t say Scalia. “Justice Scalia.” Dammit…I just said Scalia! Stupid brain.

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I always thought of Scott Brown as the Eddie Haskell of Mass. politics but I'm willing to consider whether he's the Homer Simpson, D'oh!

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I agree. David Gregory seemed out of place. We have many a good journalist and moderator in Massachusetts that could have done a better and more relevant job for Massachusetts voters.

Why did he cut short the discussion on job creation (just because he could) and instead waste broadcast time on stupid questions like name one thing you admire about your opponent.

A race for a Senate seat is not kindergarden. Well, maybe in David Gregory's medialand inside the Beltway it is.

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Address the "character" accusation issues, as they speak to the characters of both the accusers and the acusees. They're also what's being shown in both campaign commercials. I didn't think he was that bad although he seemed to be too hard on Brown at the get-go only to switch it up and hit Warren.

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Wasn't this a Boston Herald sponsored debate? They aren't going to let the issues be discussed because that hurts their man Scottie, the more the Herald/Brown campaign can keep this election about who you think is more fun, like Bush did in 2000, the better for them. Warren has the election if its debated on the issues, but so many 'independent' voters in MA seem obsessed with picking a candidate by whom they would rather have a beer with than who will fight for the people of MA.

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I remember back when debates had a strict protocol and time limits. Without that, Gregory was too tempted to get his "insightful" questions answered along with meeting quotas and schedule for getting in pre-selected audience questions. Did producers pick them to enhance ratings? I agree that I'm less interested in immigration and the Dream Act than if I lived in CA or AZ.

I wish this race were about choosing a candidate who would best serve Massachusetts (probably Brown) instead of one who will protect a vital Democratic majority in the senate (Warren).

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would better serve Mass. then Warren? All he does is take banker money and vote with the Republicans.

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How long will you troll before you get bored and go back to your ilk at the Herald? Can I tempt (bribe) you to leave? I'm honestly willing to pay you.

Seriously.

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So Markk's pro-Brown comment above makes him a troll? Or is it his lack of pro-Dem comments overall? What are you saying, exactly?

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This is how things work here at groupthink central.

If you point out that Warren and her employers colluded to game the affirmative action system, you a racist. If you think that Warren worked as a corporate lawyer to screw workers, you are a Karl Rove tool. If you think that in-state tuition should be reserved for those who pay Mass income tax, you are no doubt a Xenophobe. In all of the above, you are a troll.

And at 4pm every afternoon, there's mandatory attendance at the webcast where we're all led in a chant of "Four legs good, two legs better!"

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IMAGE(http://www.dtvusaforum.com/blogs/orrymain/attachments/1891d1344872169-director-mel-stuarts-death-brings-memories-willy-wonka-pure-imagination-willy_wonka.jpg)

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that he was a sockpuppet account to troll whosfoodies, cyclists, and urban planning is why he's a troll.

I mean, how many people that live in Boston want a 10 lane I90/I93 and a return to brutalism architecture?

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Not to get all semantic and pedantic (or sychophantic, frantic and GIGANTIC) but can you justly be called a troll if you really believe in what you're posting? While he might like to bait those three demographics (and who doesn't like shitting on urban planners, regardless of your/their politics?), he really does think the world would be better if we had superhighways running straight out of every driveway.

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hahaha, that's actually an incredibly spot-on point.

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...for this sort of poster is "crank". But maybe this term is too old-fashioned?

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IMAGE(http://www.dreamwidth.org/userpic/613245/620267)

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... "crank" is even older than The Electric company. ;~}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person)

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I wish this race were about choosing a candidate who would best serve Massachusetts (probably Brown) instead of one who will protect a vital Democratic majority in the senate (Warren).

Scott Brown was an easy choice for me over Martha Coakley. What I wrote above was to indicate I would probably vote for Warren because maintaining a Democratic majority in the US Senate is more important than choosing someone I think is better versed on a wide range of local and national issues and more concerned with Massachusetts issues. If the job was limited to lending and investment reform, Warren would get my vote without any hand wringing. I like both candidates and respect both as public servants. I met Warren and thought she was more of a talking head fed by her team of advisers. Ron Paul and Barney Frank are both admirable for being able to discuss issues in depth without notes from staff. I've not met Brown, though some of his staff seem like meatheads on the war path. My vote for Brown over Coakley was the first Republican since Weld (over Silber) that I voted for. Sorry if that makes it harder to put me in a box.

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Did you just not like the open format, or was it actually Gregory that you didn't like?

I actually liked the format, being a little more open and free-form. The format made it very hard on Gregory because he had to control the conversation rather than depending on time limits.

Waaaay too much time spent in the beginning with the Native American and "kings and queens" issues. OK, he wanted to pick a negative aspect from each campaign and do a character check, but 20(?) minutes.

Time for the UHub debates, with Adam as moderator and a new format. Warren gets 10 minutes to speak for every one minute Brown gets. ;-)

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I thought the new format had potential if, for example, they had chosen perhaps two or three areas to discuss in depth, rather than a more standard debate covering a lot of questions quickly. To do the more indepth version, though, you would need someone much more knowledgeable than David Gregory.

Adam, you nailed it. Gregory seemed to want to host the Mass debate as if it were national, not local. Even though this race has national interest. it is still for OUR senator. The first twenty minutes were such a monumental waste of time it was impossible not to resent Gregory when he started cutting both of them off in later questions.

And Charlie Pierce had it right. Gregory was gettinga kickback everytime he said "Simpson Bowles."

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I didn't watch or listen to it, but have seen through various social media and heard on NPR this morning and read in the Globe different takes on the debate. And this has to be the most subjective sets of analyses I've ever seen on a debate. All the Brown supporters say he obviously won and the Warren supporters say she won. And both groups say it with such certainty.... which leads me to believe that this a very close race. (That and all those poll results...)

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As I've said here before, the one thing we don't need in Washington is another rock thrower. That comment about Lugar may have lost the election for her because moderates, even those on the left, are not looking for such a rank partisan and moderates will decide the election -especially the 5-10% supposedly still "undecideds". The supreme court question was too narrow to base a vote on. Basically coming out and saying there's nobody I can work with on the other side is death - the vegetarian platitudes notwithstanding.

One additional point for Brown - he defended his voting quite well. I'd say Warren raised doubts about the case against her and her role in the Travelers and LTV cases, but Brown did a better job of explaining why he voted the way he did - and got in a very good point that a lot of Democrats voted with him to defeat a lot of that legislation. Contrary to popular opinion - he is rarely the deciding vote - I think less than a handful of cases in his tenure and at least one of those was on a contentious national security issue.

As for the moderator - part of Warren's problem was that he hardly let her speak. Brown's a smart guy - every time the moderator gave him an opening he took it and ran with it - I'd love to see a stopwatch or word count - I bet Brown was speaking at least twice as long as Warren if not more.

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Damned if you don't. It's unfair, but as a women, going on the attack or interrupting the moderator is a very risky game. If your tone is off, or if you do it too much, it becomes VERY easy to paint a woman politician in some very old, and persistent misogynic stereotypes.

Warren being a policy wonk, and one to get drawn into long, detailed answers / pointed remarks; knew better than to push it.

Also, a tied debate where the incumbent is behind in most of the recent polling, is losing. Warren really needed to screw up, or Brown needed to shake up the race with his indys.

I don't think either happened, and this was a "home turf" debate for all intent and purposes.

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Not twice as long, but a good 5 minutes more than Warren whereas combined both candidates only spoke for a little more than 40 minutes total. See my top-level comment below for more info on how long each candidate spoke.

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was doing it's damnedest false equivalency drive last night.

Warrens only folly of the evening, if you go by their account, was mentioning Richard Luger as a Conservative she could work with (He's retiring).

They called it fumble, but the exchange didn't play out that way.

Gregory and Brown both jumped on it, and Warren said something to the effect of pointing out there's not much to work with with as far a GOP congressmen willing to work together with Dem's go. She then pivoted to her bipartisan bonifides, and promised to work together on any legislation that would benefit the middle class.

I thought it was a pretty telling exchange, and in a state where 52+% of the population are worried about a GOP controlled congress, it showed what was at stake.

But apparently that was the low point for Warren?

If anything I think she came off poor when talking about "what nice things you have to say to each other". But given the unwarranted attacks on her work and character, can you blame her for being a bit snide?

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I have to say that being at the debate, I noticed one of her weakest answers was in response to Brown's anti-DREAM Act comments. The one message I feel carries the most weight when Obama speaks to why he chose to executive order the INS to leave the would-be recipients of the DREAM Act alone is that the people affected by this legislation are children. They are children who, through absolutely zero fault of their own, ended up in America. Yes, they arrived illegally and their parents were legally wrong to have done so, but when have we ever perpetrated the punishment of the parents upon the child?

Her answer never got to the heart of the discussion choosing instead to focus on simple "needing immigration reform".

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Most Commonwealthers support the Dream act, and the short,to the point "Yes, I support it" works. Especially over Browns bumbling response to skate the line between what his constituents think and what his base thinks on the issue.

It was rather amusing and pathetic to watch him traverse that mine field. Especially since he shouldn't even have to.

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to my knowledge, the U.S. is the only western nation that grants automatic citizenship to anyone physically born on it's soil, even to 'illegals'? Even the great 'progressive' nation to our north, Canada, has stopped doing this, and it was a Liberal Canadian government that was responsible.

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I'm an American citizen (thanks to my grandfathers birth) because of that law. Our immigration laws are xenophobic and irrational as is. We're a nation of immigrants, and it's immigration that has kept us a beacon of the worlds best and brightest.

We need to make it easier for others to come here, pay their taxes, buy a home, and live the America Dream, not harder. If criminals come, enforce the laws and deport their criminal asses.

Pretty simple if you ask me. Then again I'm not afraid of brown or black people. Or Italians, or Irish, or whatever the current racist dog-whistle is.

New people bring new ideas, new innovations, and growing communities. Many are religious, conservative, and hardworking. Why the GOP wants to stigmatize them is beyond me. Has white supremacy and the remnant dixiecrats really penetrated their national ID that pervasively?

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STOP USING THE 'RACIST' CARD, PLEASE. I'm not racist and am not 'afraid' of 'brown or' black' people. Mass immigration of semi skilled or unskilled people in our so-called post-intraindustry society is silly beyond belief, unless your goal was create havoc and degrade such society, and/or to bankrupt it with out of control costs for social services. And of course at least one major political party needs as many people as possible 'collecting' for votes.

And no, I think our military budget and foreign obligations are grossly out of control, also.

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are you talking about?

Currently policy, that businesses like very much thank you, allows them to pay unfair and undocumented wages for work. The only thing that could possibly "degrade or bankrupt" our society is businesses not following the letter of the law, which is currently happening. The GOP likes to use this as a wedge issue, but they're perfectly happy with the status quo because of their business interests. They can rile up their base, do little, and get donations for businesses screwing workers.

Either go after them and force them to comply, or face debilitating fines. OR legalize a population that should be legal, and have a much easier path to citizenship as it is.

Hell, there's good reason to think passing key provisions of the DREAM act will lead to billions in new tax revenue and millions of new jobs. There is NO go reason to put impediments to legal immigration in this nation, other than xenophobia and racism.

We're committing economic suicide if we do.

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WTF is going on with the GOP

This is nuts. And it's dangerous. And yeah, it's racist.

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You should probably stop getting your news from Glenn Beck. Canada is debating whether to close loopholes in its immigration law that allow people to temporarily visit the country, have a child which would give it citizenship, and then wait until the child is 18 when the child could then sponsor the parents for citizenship too. No actual legislation has been fully proposed or voted on in Canada to change immigration/citizenship law regarding this. As such, Canada still has a full "jus soli" policy the same as the United States does.

Furthermore, the Dream Act isn't about children born here. It is about children born in their home countries being brought here by their parents. So, your commentary is both fictitious and irrelevant.

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It's mostly limited to America... if you mean North America, Central America, and South America.

Pretty much the entire Western Hemisphere has jus soli, from Canada all the way down to Chile. One would have to be pretty disoriented to imagine Mexico, Brazil, Argentina (and all points between) aren't Western nations.

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To non-partisans, she sounded like an idiot.

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Scott Brown is so rude to Warren, it's ridiculous. The guy cannot make his own points without ripping her. He couldn't even say something nice about her when prompted, had to take a shot at her. He couldn't even bring himself to say she's a good grandmother or something. Are others picking up on his complete condescension? It's honestly very classless for a sitting senator. Also completely contradicts his supposed nice guy act.

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Maybe he was trying to make her cry, the big bully.

Seriously, and I'm not even a Scott Brown fan, but c'mon. Liz Warren's supporters better material than I've read on here.

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Usually people, in this case Brown, resort to cheap shots when they're desperate and have nothing intelligent to say. Warren maintained her composure throughout the debate, while Brown seemed unprepared and rattled at times.

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Warren does seem to be better at not taking all the negative ads personally.

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I’m not in your courtroom,” Brown answered. “I’m not a defendant. So let me answer the question."

This was Brown's answer when Coakley hit him about birth control and Brown's support for the so-called "conscience clause"

Sound familiar? Sound sort of like the "I'm not one of your students" line he used last night with Warren?

The man's got nothing and is a condescending
P R I C K.

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Let's see him debate a proctologist next!

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You are right on. Scott Brown has been able to use his temper and these prepared one-liners to get LOTS of media coverage about the one-liners, which distracts from every substantive issue discussed in the debate -- a result that used to accrue to Scott Brown's advantage.

But Scott Brown's been in the limelight long enough that we're beginning to tune in to his method and call him out on his bs.

The classroom comment is getting much different coverage than the courtroom comment did.

First, it's recognized as a prepared quip robbing it of the effectiveness it used to have by virtue of its angry delivery.

Second, people are willing to look beyonf the temper-driven putdown at the situation, the context of the remark, and see that neither David Gregory nor Scott Brown would permit Warren to challenge Brown's original assertion on a factual basis, which was the main idea behind this debate -- that the candidates could respond to each other and challenge their assertion.

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Brown is a MODERATE Republican, LIBERAL by national standards. He is not against birth control [LOL!] and you know it. Birth control and abortion on demand are not going away, and you know this too.

I'm not a Republican or Democrat, and see the good and bad in both candidates. I'm an unusual poster on here, I'm actually fair and open minded, not a party shill.

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you educate yourself on Brown's voting record before posting. He voted with the GOP to allow employers to deny birth control coverage to women employees for any reason. He voted to make it harder for women to get access to affordable birth control. You don't know what you're talking about.

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Here's the quote from his spokesperson - not even close to "deny birth control coverage to women employees for any reason".

“It’s elitist for Elizabeth Warren to dictate to religious people about what they should believe and how they should act. She wants to use the power of government to force Catholics to violate the teachings of their faith,” Brown spokesman Colin Reed emailed. “That is wrong. This issue deals with one of our most fundamental rights as a people — the freedom of religion. Like Ted Kennedy, Scott Brown supports a religious conscience exemption in health care.”

As for access to affordable birth control, my guess is that's liberal speak for subsidized - i.e. government paid. Scott Brown recognizes what many on both sides don't - WE'RE BROKE. He probably has no problem with the policy, but a big problem with how it gets paid for.

Don't forget, legislation is like sausage and you don't want to see either get made. He can't pick apart Warren's record on controversial and contradictory legislation because she doesn't have one. You can parse almost any legislator's voting record into oblivion.

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Gregory is such a weenie. What do you expect from a guy who did the funky chicken on stage with Carl Rove at the WH correspondents' dinner?

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I used an online archive of the debate that clocks in at a length of 57′35″. I recorded the timestamp at the beginning and end of the two candidates' responses and comments and did some analysis.

Of the 57′35″, 42′19″ was taken by the candidates leaving 15′16″ for David Gregory, the two student questions, the commercial break, credits, and minor pauses in action (crowd, everyone talking at once, etc.). When I refer to "comments" below, I am speaking about uninterrupted blocks of time (with one or two exceptions each way for single word interjections by David Gregory which I did not stop and restart for).

Elizabeth Warren made 21 comments with the shortest being around 4 seconds and the longest being 2′46″ long. That was also the longest uninterrupted comment during the entire debate from either candidate. I believe it was during the discussion of the legal cases she has represented where she was giving background about the participants and relevance of the cases. 8 of her 21 comments were above 1 minute in length with 3 of the 21 being as short as 4 seconds each.

Scott Brown made 24 comments, three more than Warren. His shortest comment was 13 seconds and his longest comment was 2′08″. 11 of his 24 comments were over 1 minute in length each and about 4 more were also between 50-60 seconds long each (Warren's next longest comment below one minute in length was 44 seconds long).

The totals for each candidate favored Scott Brown who spoke for 23′52″ (56.4%) to Elizabeth Warren's 18′27″ (43.6%) for a significant difference of an extra 5′25″ (9.4% of the total air time) for Scott Brown.

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Interesting - BTW my wife turned to me in the middle of the debate and showed me her twitter feed - and says - isn't kaz one of your Uhub friends? Guessing that was you?

Hope you had fun.

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Thanks, the debate was fun to attend in person even though I was about as far from the stage as possible and the audio in the arena wasn't piped through the stadium's sound system (and the only thing worse than the audio was the automated open captioning system where "millionaires" was frequently transcribed as "million Arizonas").

The audience was told by David Gregory that we should keep our responses to ourselves (they were behaved for about 20 minutes more than I thought they would). He continued that if we really wanted to say something then "that's why God invented Twitter". I guess one of my tweets during the debate got a bit of exposure though. So, I'm guessing that's what she saw.

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I've seen a lot of debates and I have to agree David Gregory was absolutely t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e. I think he thought he was on Meet the Press. What an embarrassment for NBC News.

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I've seen a lot of debates and I have to agree David Gregory was absolutely t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e. I think he thought he was on Meet the Press. What an embarrassment for NBC News.

+1

NBC news is no worse or better than the other commercial news networks - they have been shameless for a long-time.

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Was he supposed to be a moderator? Didn't look like it.

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