Media Matters for America: Birther To Moderate Newsmax GOP Debate

[pampango]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201112020018

The New York Times reports this afternoon that the right-wing magazine Newsmax will host a Republican debate later this month, and that it will be moderated by Donald Trump, the real estate mogul, reality show host, and nation's most prominent birther.

Good to know we're at the point where we can shrug off one of the more blatantly racist spectacles in modern American politics. I guess Trump benefits, if that's the right word, from having already been too clownish a figure to let something like birtherism tarnish his reputation.

And it's no great shock that Newsmax would select a conspiracy-mongering publicity hound as their moderator. Newsmax publisher Chris Ruddy spent the Clinton years flogging the conspiracy theory that Vince Foster's suicide was actually a murder connected to the Clintons.

But during the Clinton years, people like Ruddy were confined largely to the fringe. These days... well, Mr. Trump has a few questions he'd like to ask.

[county worker]

1. First question from Trump, " How early did you realize Obama was a Muslim from Kenya?"

[Chipper Chat]

2. If zero GOP candidates show up...it will turn in to a ......

" rump roast"

[Liberal Veteran]

3. I think they should get Oily Taint to moderate instead.

I might even watch for entertainment value if that were the case.

[zacherystaylor]

4. What would Manson do?

When I heard this I quickly decided that it would be worthwhile to make an http://open.salon.com/blog/zacherydtaylor/2011/12/05/urgent_request_for_charles_manson">Urgent request for Charles Manson that would get his input on the subject. It seems as rational as anything that the Mass Media is coming up with on the subject.