It's pathetic how the Republicans and the McCain people have been insinuating that Gwen Ifill could not be fair as a moderator because she wrote a book that mentioned Obama.
I love this. David Plouffe can be very cutting when he wishes.
Plouffe plays the Brokaw cardSpeaking to reporters earlier today, Obama campaign manager suggested that Obama could raise doubts about NBC's Tom Brokaw, who is also set to moderate a debate, just as McCain's campaign has suggested PBS's Gwen Ifill shouldn't moderate tonight's.
Plouffe noted that Tom Brokow has been in the paper recently talking about “his communication with the McCain campaign and their friendship."
"I assume they’ll apply the same standard to Tom Brokaw," he said.
The New York Times reported that Brokaw had conducted "shuttle diplomacy" between the McCain campaign and NBC, about which the campaign had complained.
MoveOn.org has also attacked Brokaw for getting a poll number wrong while hosting "Meet the Press."
:applause: for Plouffe.
Here is a lot of background about the Tom Brokaw involvement with getting Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann demoted as anchors during debates. He admitted it himself.
Brokaw played a role in getting Matthews and Olbermann "demoted" as anchors for debates.But less widely known is that Mr. Brokaw has also played a pivotal role out of public view, both within NBC and in its dealings with the campaign of John McCain in particular.
In an interview here after Sunday’s broadcast, Mr. Brokaw said that over the summer he had “advocated” within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates. Their expressions of strong political opinions from the MSNBC anchor desk has run counter to the more traditional role Mr. Brokaw played on “NBC Nightly News” for more than two decades. NBC said earlier this month that the two hosts would mostly relinquish their anchor duties to Mr. Gregory, while being present as analysts.
Brokaw also let slip that he played a role in making sure NBC was fair to John McCain. Again his own words.
Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate’s aides that — despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular — Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates — until his name was invoked.
Not only that Tom Brokaw used a poll on Meet the Press that was two weeks old. He made it look like John McCain was doing much better than in actuality he is.
Yesterday, Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars pointed out that the numbers Brokaw read did not, in fact, appear in the "latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll."
Now MoveOn says they contacted NBC -- and "it turns out Brokaw was referring to a poll taken weeks ago--right after the Republican convention and well before Friday's big national security debate. And in each of NBC's last two polls, Americans chose Obama over McCain."
MoveOn thinks Brokaw should apologize.
That's a good first step. He might also want to figure out a way to reassure the public that he'll do a better -- and more fair -- job when he moderates the October 7 presidential debate.
He probably won't spend much time doing that, though -- his days are apparently pretty full acting as NBC's liaison to the McCain campaign. In that role, Brokaw works to assure the McCain camp that "Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News."
Media Matters about Move On and Brokaw and the use of the wrong poll.Good for Plouffe, about time someone mentioned Brokaw's bias.
:applause:
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