Rush Limbaugh
Asked about the election debates, Frank Fahrenkopf, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, observed yesterday, "I’ve got to tell you, having done as many as I’ve done, usually the side that’s perceived as having lost the debate is the one that complains about the moderator."
Fahrenkopf and McCurry on moderators, incumbent woes
A lot of conservatives seemed to run with variations of that idea after the Obama/Romney debate last week:
Rush Limbaugh claims to intentionally ignore all such discussion in order to avoid the "copycat" label:
For those of you who are tuning in to find out if there's anything different here than what you have heard elsewhere, I don't know, because I haven't purposely spent much time listening to what other people think. I seldom do that 'cause I don't want to be accused of mimicking or copying anybody.
—Rush Limbaugh: Mean Joe: The Face of the Democrat Party
It may be no surprise, then, that Rush blundered right into the pattern, blaming the moderator for Biden beating Ryan:
Rush: Don't be surprised at Raddatz. I told you Raddatz was gonna behave as she did. It was in the cards. It was predictable. Ryan knew it. It isn't an excuse. You can get mad and you can say it was unfair, but, believe me, everybody else saw that it was unfair. Everybody else saw that it was rude. Everybody else saw this is a stacked deck. Everybody saw it the way you did, except the Democrat underground types or the Democrat bloggers...
Now, here. This what I said about Martha Raddatz.
This was Wednesday predicting what she was gonna do as moderator of the debate.
RUSH ARCHIVE: [H]er job is gonna be to make sure that Ryan doesn't run roughshod, that Ryan doesn't get away with speaking longer than the rules permit, all this kind of stuff. I'll tell you, the left and the others in the media and the regime are gonna be really, really counting on Martha Raddatz. The moderator here is gonna be viewed as just as important if not more so than Biden. Gotta make sure the balance remains in favor of Biden.
RUSH: So it was predictable that she was gonna do that, and she did it. I mean, you've seen the stats of how many interruptions and how many questions versus how many interruptions of questions for Biden. It was clearly stacked, clearly unfair, and it was obvious to everybody. If you thought it was unfair, you're not in a vacuum. Everybody thought the same thing. Even CNN said Raddatz was the third debater.
—Rush Limbaugh: Mean Joe: The Face of the Democrat Party
Of course, Limbaugh wasn't alone:
I'll give kos the last word:
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