Tom Brokaw, if not stopped, will do his best to sabotage Barack Obama during the next debate. Mediamatters.org and moveon are already on it. Moveon is asking its members to write Brokaw concerning the bias he showed Sunday during Meet The Press. Media matters is also pointing out Brokaws' blatant bias towards McCain. NY Times has also come out with a piece about Brokaw being some type of special "liason" to the McCain Campaign:
This next passage is from the Meet The Press transcript. Brokaw outright lies about what Obama said during the debate, suggesting fervently that Obama couldn't come up with any programs to slash due to the bailout:
MR. BROKAW: But the picture economically is darker with every passing day, and here's what Robert Bixby, who is with the Concord Coalition, had to say about your two candidates. "I don't think either candidate is treating the deficit, or the debt, seriously. I don't see any proposals from either one that would make the situation any better." This is a nonpartisan observer who is looking at it. Senator Obama the other night was asked to name one program that he would cut given the economic realities. We're going to be at war in two countries, he wants to reform healthcare, have alternative energy and early childhood. He didn't name one program, Mr. Axelrod.
MR. AXELROD: That's not true, Tom. He talked about the Medicare Advantage program, which is a big giveaway to the insurance companies within the Medicare program. That's $15 billion a year right there. Another big item that we have to deal with is the $10 billion a month we're spending in Iraq while Iraq has a $79 billion surplus. Senator McCain would like to continue there indefinitely. The American people want to come home from Iraq, to send some troops from Afghanistan, and to begin investing that money here at home. So there are many things that we can do. Obviously, we're going to have to look at the budget, and Senator Obama said he's going to go through it line by line, and he's going to get rid of things that don't work. We have, for example, a one--a reading program that was installed by the Bush administration that turned out to be a big boondoggle. It's not helping any kids learn. We ought to say that doesn't work, let's get rid of it. And that's the approach he's going to take. If we're going to do the things we need to do, the things you mentioned, the things that are going to strengthen the middle class in our economy, we're going to have to be very, very flinty-eyed about what we can keep and what we don't.
Here's the letter sent out by Moveon:
Sunday on Meet The Press, Tom Brokaw moderated a debate between McCain strategist Steve Schmidt and Obama strategist David Axelrod on topics ranging from Iraq to the Wall Street bailout. At the end, Tom Brokaw did something strange. He opted to give himself the last word and told the audience:
In fairness to everybody here, I'm just going to end on one note. And that is that we continue to poll on who's best equipped to be Commander in Chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Gentlemen, thank you very much.1
We checked, and the latest NBC poll actually has no question about Commander in Chief.2 We contacted NBC about this, 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.3 And in each of NBC's last two polls, Americans chose Obama over McCain.4
Can you email Tom Brokaw today? Let him know that this election is very close, and we need journalists to be responsible. Giving himself the last word in the debate, and citing an outdated poll number as if it was current, was a mistake. As a responsible journalist, he should apologize for both.
Here's where to contact him:
Tom Brokaw, Meet The Press feedback form: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Then, help us track our progress by reporting your comment here:
http://pol.moveon.org/...
Barack Obama was widely praised after Friday's presidential debate for his knowledge of foreign affairs and national security. ABC's George Stephanopoulos summed up the consensus this way: "Overall, bottom line, the winner is Barack Obama...his number one goal was to show that he belonged on that stage...he could hold his own on national security, he did that tonight, he gets the win."5
Every major poll after that debate showed Americans thought Obama won--and a CNN poll said voters trusted Obama over McCain to handle Iraq.6 Plus, three major polls released on Sunday showed Americans choosing Obama over McCain.7
So Brokaw's insertion at the end of the debate wasn't just random--it painted an inaccurate picture of the race for voters. Can you contact Brokaw today?
Thanks for all you do.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
E-MAIL NBC AND DEMAND FAIRNESS FOR THE UPCOMING DEBATES. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
CALL NBC TO DEMAND BROKAW APOLOGIZE FOR HIS OUTRIGHT BIAS. (212) 664-4444
Concerns regarding Tom Brokaw's fitness to moderate the Oct. 7 presidential debate may be addressed to Janet Brown, director of the Commission on Presidential Debates: jb@debates.org