“Now, that’s a Commander-in-Chief! If he can scare the hell out of Matt Lauer, just imagine what he can do to ISIS.”
- New Yorker cartoon
I must live a sheltered life because I’d never heard Matt Lauer’s name before Wednesday night’s “town hall” on NBC and MSNBC. And I hope I never hear it again. As a “moderator,” the man is a dud.
I guess he thought he was asking “hard” questions, but what he was doing most of the time was spouting his own opinions and showing his own bias. He was especially unfair to Hillary by constantly interrupting her and by constantly focusing on “those damn emails.”
I am sure we all know by now that Hillary used the wrong email system for some official correspondence when she was secretary of state. She admitted it and apologized for it long, long ago.
And we all know how smart, brave and altogether fantastic Donald Trump thinks he is.
But, surely, there’s more to being America’s commander in chief? If there is, Lauer didn’t manage to enlighten us. I didn’t learn one new thing from the entire show.
I thought we were going to hear the candidates’ plans for keeping America – and the world – safe. Instead we heard what Matt Lauer (at right) thinks about Hillary’s emails. And how tough and smart Trump thinks he is. But when it comes to specifics, they were conspicuous by their absence. Trump explained his plan to defeat ISIS has to be kept secret so ISIS will be surprised.
I don’t think a good moderator would’ve let him get away with that. do you?
And a good moderator would’ve fact checked Trump’s claim that he always opposed the Iraq War. A cursory fact check would’ve revealed that Trump was for the war before he was against it.
A good moderator would’ve set Trump straight when he promised to set up a separate court system for the military. In fact, the military has had its own court system forever.
But Lauer didn’t set Trump straight. He seemed reluctant to challenge the Republican nominee with the ferocity he showed while “questioning” Hillary. He didn’t interrupt Trump once, for example.
This is the kind of shoddy journalism you an expect when you merge entertainment with the news. I don’t think Lauer was ever a real reporter. His entire career has been on TV, and he was a talk show host before becoming an anchor.
Don’t you think war and peace are too important to be treated as entertainment? I do.
More on Matt Lauer’s performance
