In an effort to understand what kind of bias was at work Wednesday night, I went back and read the transcripts of the last two debates ABC hosted: a Republican one followed by a Democratic one, both in Manchester on January 5. Here's the most striking thing: In the Republican debate, all the questions were substantive.
In order, the Republican candidates were asked about the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive attack, the principles they would stand on no matter what, health insurance, immigration, how to run against Obama, and gas prices. No character issues at all. Nobody asked Giuliani about providing police protection for his mistress or McCain about why evangelicals distrust him or Romney about going on a driving vacation with his dog on the roof. Nothing. Zero.
A couple other interesting things about that list of questions: The assumption in the "principles" question is that of course Republicans have principles that they stand for firmly -- Republicans are strong, upright people, you know. And the assumption in the "run against Obama" question is that Republicans will be on the attack. "I'd like to hear some specifics on why not him," ABC's local moderator explained.
Wednesday night in Philadelphia the Democrats were offered no similar "How will you run against McCain?" question. Instead, it was assumed once again that the Democrat will be on defense in November: Here are all the low blows the Republicans will aim at you. How do you plan to respond?
So what about ABC's Democratic debate in January? After an initial question about going after al Qaida in Pakistan, the candidates were asked: "On the day after a nuclear weapon goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to prevent it?" (Because one will, you know, if a Democrat gets elected. And looking back on it, in hindsight, is the only way to get Democrats to take this seriously.)
Then Senator Clinton was reminded of her comment that Obama "needs to be vetted" and asked "What questions are there about Senator Obama that are unanswered?" No Republican was given such a clear, open-ended invitation to attack another Republican.
Similarly to the way he argued for the McCain/Bush capital-gains-tax position Wednesday night, Charles Gibson in January challenged the Democrats on Iraq: "Are any of you ready to say that the surge has worked?" And in a specific follow-up statement to Obama: "The parliament meets, an oil law is under consideration, de-Baathification has progressed to some extent, and were it not for the surge, instead of counting votes, we'd be counting bodies in the streets. Would you have seen this kind of greater security in Iraq if we had followed your recommendations to pull the troops out last year, Senator Obama?"
And to Edwards: "If the generals in Iraq came to you as President Edwards and said, 'Mr. President' -- on January 21, 2009 -- 'you're wrong, you can't do this. You're going to send Iraq back into the kind of chaos we had before,' are you going to stick with it?"
In this debate -- minutes after the character-issue-free Republicans' debate, remember -- Clinton was asked about her "likability". And Obama was asked about the criticisms the Republicans had just made, particularly Senator Thompson's implication "that you would be way left of center". No Republican had been asked if he might be "too right of center" to be elected, or to respond to any Democratic criticism at all. (Maybe they could have asked Giuliani about Biden's line that all his sentences include "a noun, a verb and 9-11.")
Richardson and Edwards were asked about the importance of experience, which I interpreted as more trolling for negative comments about Obama. About energy, Richardson was asked: "You, as [Clinton's] energy secretary, you didn't get it done then, so why believe you'd get it done now because we're having the same debate?"
And January's Democratic debate closed with the general question: "Tell me one thing you've said in [previous] debates that you wish you hadn't said."
In other words, the questions for the Democrats were almost entirely negative: What about your mistakes? What about other Democrats' mistakes and weaknesses? What are you going to do after your plans don't work? after an American city gets blown up? after the generals tell you that your troop withdrawal will be a disaster?
I couldn't find any similar question for the Republicans. No Republican, for example, was asked, "What if we try your market-oriented ideas on health care and the number of uninsured people keeps going up?" or "What if you keep cutting taxes on the rich, and the economy tanks?"
So here's my conclusion: The bias we saw from ABC Wednesday night is predominantly pro-Republican, not pro-Clinton (in spite of Stephanapoulos' Clinton connections). And Obama has been in ABC's sniper-scope at least since he won in Iowa.