Hamstrung By Accuracy

Some things are sure bets. There will be a World Series this year, and the Milwaukee Brewers won't be in it.  A few months later, there will be a Super Bowl, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won't be in it.  Several months later, the Minnesota Timberwolves won't be in the NBA finals.  Between now and then, it will snow in Maine, Vermont, and Wisconsin. And when someone accuses you of "nitpicking," he has lost the argument.

The National Review's Jonah Goldberg is unaware (or is at least pretending to be unaware) that

Seeking to avert a government shutdown, Republican leaders drove a bill blocking Planned Parenthood's federal funds through the House on Friday, hoping to contain conservatives' demands for a politically risky showdown with President Barack Obama by striking a quick blow against abortion.

The nearly party-line 241-187 vote followed a no-holds-barred debate that included a graphic, poster-sized photo of a scarred, aborted fetus and underscored how abortion has resurfaced as a white-hot political issue. The battle has been rejoined just in time for the 2016 election campaign and next week's historic address to Congress by Pope Francis.

The issue's re-emergence followed the release of secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials offhandedly discussing how they sometimes procure tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research.

Two days earlier, Carly Fiorina at the GOP presidential debate pontificated

As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it’s heart beating, it’s legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.

This is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up in and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us.

Now that Fiorina has been exposed as a fabricator (which she already had proven herself to be), Goldberg concedes "The exact scene, exactly as Fiorina describes it, is not on the videos."

That seems rather clear. However, it doesn't really matter because Goldberg says: never mind. He protests "But anybody who has watched the videos would find Fiorina's off-the-cuff account pretty accurate."

As Sarah Kliff has outlined, there is no footage of the moment described by the former Planned Parenthood technician, nor hard evidence that it even occurred. The footage of the fetus isn't from the Planned Parenthood videos; one image is of a still born baby and "other footage evidently is derived from a collection of stock footage of fetuses."

Goldberg doesn't deny Fiorina's account is inaccurate, instead claiming her "critics want to claim that because she didn't take into account these distinctions, she's just making stuff up." Facts become "distinctions" and irrelevant to him.  The critics, obsessed with facts, have "become Jesuitical nitpickers, muddying the water to conceal the fact that late-term abortions offend the conscience when discussed or displayed with anything like journalistic accuracy."

Accuracy doesn't matter, as long as it's "anything like journalistic accuracy,"  and especially if it reinforces the notion of abortion as offensive to the conscience.  Because late-term abortions are objectionable, anything goes.  It's "muddying the waters" to note that Fiorina preceded her rant with "as regards to Planned Parenthood," notwithstanding the absence of evidence of any connection to Planned Parenthood.

Hoaxes happen. More significantly, the reasoning displayed by Goldberg is characteristic of much of modern conservative thought.  Details are unnecessary, facts expendable. Late-term abortion shocks the conscience, reasons Goldberg, so any visual depiction, or description, of the procedure is righteous.

Carly Fiorina- "as regards to Planned Parenthood"- lustily joined the wholesale, destructive attack on Planned Parenthood, even suggesting it is linked to the regime in Tehran. She went on to describe vividly a scene (even frighteningly referring to "harvesting organs") which she had little reason to believe took place at Planned Parenthood.  With its potential to damage reproductive rights, it has far greater implications than anything Ann Coulter has said about Pope Francis, Donald Trump about Barack Obama, or Ben Carson about Muslims.











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Much Ado About Not Much

He was almost honest.  After Ben Carson on Sunday's Meet The Press stated that he wouldn't want a Muslim as President because the religion is inconsistent with the principles of the US Constitution, the presidential contender appeared on The Sean Hannity Show on Monday and

continued, however, by saying that so long as a Muslim rejected his Islamic faith, he or she would be qualified to run for office. “If someone has a Muslim background, and they’re willing to reject those tenets and to accept the way of life that we have, and clearly will swear to place our Constitution above their religion, then of course they will be considered infidels and heretics, but at least I would then be quite willing to support them,” he said.

Hannity built on that point, asking Carson if all he really meant to say was that so long as Muslims denounce elements of their faith, he could support them. “Of course,” Carson replied.

“Did you really mean to say ‘radical Islamists’?” Hannity asked.

“That was implied in the comment,” Carson said. “I prefaced that by saying I don’t care what faith someone belongs to, if they’re willing to subjugate that to the American way and the Constitution, I have no problem with that.”

If Carson had left it at "If someone has a Muslim background and they're willing to reject those tenets... at least I would then be quite willing to support them." he would be okay, more or less. He would have subtly- but significantly- clarified his statement.  However, he added. "I prefaced that by saying I don't care what faith someone belongs to, if they're willing to subjugate that to the American way and the Constitution."

Uh, no, he didn't, instead stating definitively "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that." Here is the relevant exchange, which is followed by a question about voting for a Muslim for Congress:



CHUCK TODD:

Let me wrap this up by finally dealing with what's been going on, Donald Trump, and a deal with a questioner that claimed that the president was Muslim. Let me ask you the question this way: Should a President's faith matter? Should your faith matter to voters?

DR. BEN CARSON:

Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.

CHUCK TODD:

So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?

DR. BEN CARSON:

No, I don't, I do not.

CHUCK TODD:

So you--

DR. BEN CARSON:

I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.







As even Ted Cruz acknowledges, Carson's belief runs counter to Article VI of the Constitution, which includes "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."  His assertion to Hannity that "radical Islamists" was "implied in the comment" was a bold-faced lie because it was not implied, as he was well aware. So much, also, for that Ninth Commandment, the one about bearing false witness.

Of course, the argument of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (whose YouTube video of Todd/Carson is above) that "We ask Mr. Ben Carson to withdraw from the presidential race because he is unfit to lead because his views are in contradiction with the U.S. Constitution" is silly. As the ongoing effort of the GOP to prohibit all abortions after twenty weeks (in violation of Roe v. Wade) indicates, the Constitution is relevant to the Republican Party only when convenient.  If candidates for President were limited to individuals devoted to the Constitution, that Party would be hard pressed to field anyone for the office.

Carson's remark was also irrelevant, given that he does not have the authority to "put a Muslim in charge of this nation" nor to put anyone in charge of this nation.   Further, any disingenuousness or dishonesty from Carson on this issue leaves him more honest than Carly Fiorina, to whom he currently is close in national polling.  While Fiorina is a relentless self-promoter, Ben Carson appears to be a humble individual.   And among Republican candidates devoid of virtually anything socially redeeming, that should count for a little.








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Maybe She'll Promise To Do To The USA What She Did To HP

The afternoon following the last Republican debate, a group from Five Thirty Eight discussed in a chat room the status of the presidential race.  Five-thirty-eight editor-in-chief Nate Silver,  Editor-in-chief Nate Silver, a political writer, and two editors assessed Carly Fiorina's prospects and speculated whether they would buy, sell, or hold the stock of the candidates given what their odds are of gaining the nomination (graph, below) as of 9-17-2015.

They don't agree across-the-board but there is some sentiment in favor of a "sell" on Bush, Carson, Trump, and Cruz and for a "buy" on Rubio and Christie.

Perhaps more interesting, however, were various insights offered on the candidates.  One of the editors wisely stated of Marco Rubio "I get the strong feeling he is biding his time."  Noting Trump's unwarranted skepticism of vaccination for communicable diseases, Silver maintained Beb Carson "just passed on a couple of opportunities to stick the knife in last night in a way that leads me to wonder whether he's in it to win it." He observed "the thing about Fiorina is it seems a little off to classify her as an insurgent.  If you're the CEO of a major company HP, you're a part of the establishment unless you're a real weirdo " (which Fiorina is not).

One commenter paying attention remarked Fiorina "would be a disaster. Ruined HP along with every other company she worked for. Wait until the mud starts getting slung her way now that she's stepped out of the shadows. It won't be pretty."

Hint of this comes from an article in Politico Magazine by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, whom Trump referred to in the debate as having condemned Fiorina's tenure at HP and whom Fiorina misleadingly characterized as "a well-known Clintonite."   Sonnefeld explained

In the five years that Fiorina was at Hewlett-Packard, the company lost over half its value. It’s true that many tech companies had trouble during this period of the Internet bubble collapse, some falling in value as much as 27 percent; but HP under Fiorina fell 55 percent. During those years, stocks in companies like Apple and Dell rose. Google went public, and Facebook was launched. The S&P 500 yardstick on major U.S. firms showed only a 7 percent drop. Plenty good was happening in U.S. industry and in technology.

It was Fiorina’s failed leadership that brought her company down. After an unsuccessful attempt to catch up to IBM’s growth in IT services by buying PricewaterhouseCooper’s consulting business (PwC, ironically, ended up going to IBM instead), she abruptly abandoned the strategic goal of expanding IT services and consulting and moved into heavy metal. At a time that devices had become a low margin commodity business, Fiorina bought for $25 billion the dying Compaq computer company, which was composed of other failed businesses. Unsurprisingly, the Compaq deal never generated the profits Fiorina hoped for, and HP’s stock price fell by half. The only stock pop under Fiorina’s reign was the 7 percent jump the moment she was fired following a unanimous board vote. After the firing, HP shuttered or sold virtually all Fiorina had bought.

Sonnefeld paints a picture of a greedy, dishonest executive who revels in personal attacks and remains convinced she always is right despite evidence to the contrary.  As classic inside the Beltway journalist Chris Cillizza writes, "Fiorina got off relatively easily Wednesday night, but if she continues to move up in the polls, you can expect to hear a lot more -- from her opponents and in super PAC ads -- about her record at HP." Nonetheless, no one can be certain whether her ugly business record will alone derail her.

Nonetheless, she would prove a disastrous candidate in a manner well understood by Secretary of State John Kerry and junior California senator Barbara Boxer.

You may remember the falsely named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, with its disreputable, dishonest, and devastating campaign against 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Kerry.  That was nothing compared to what would hit Carly Fiorina, with the added advantage that criticism of Fiorina would be accurate and would tie her record at Hewlett-Packard with a standard priority of the presidency. Cillizza recalls

In 2010, Fiorina was running surprisingly close to California Sen. Barbara Boxer (D), who was struggling in a strong election cycle for Republicans nationally. Then, Boxer ran this ad focused on Fiorina's time at the helm of HP.

The commercial notes that Fiorina laid off 30,000 workers at HP while feathering her own nest (the ad's narrator says she tripled her salary) and buying a "million-dollar yacht" and "five corporate jets." It went up on TV in the middle of September and effectively ended Fiorina's chances....

 PolitiFact has truth-squadded the commercial and found the claims in it to be "mostly true." And with the growing inequity between the haves and the have-nots in the U.S. already established as a front-burner issue in both parties, the attack is likely to be particularly cutting for Fiorina.









Fiorina could possibly be nominated (though it is highly unlikely) because while, according to The New York Times, the manager of her Senate campaign acknowledged the attacks (ad above) harmed her in the general election but they "didn't have any legs at all among G.O.P. primary voters."    (Mrs. Fiorina shouldn't get upset. The reference to "legs" has nothing to do with her appearance.)  But the delicious part, as the Times points out, is

Jim Margolis, the ad maker for the Boxer campaign, is now a senior media adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"People don't know her yet," Ms. Boxer said in an interview before last week's debate. "What they'll understand pretty quickly is that she is the face of income inequality and Wall Street greed."





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One-Sided Debate

Children! Stop whining and eat your vegetables!

Clinton ally and circa 2004 Democratic National Committee chairperson Terry McAuliffe has a point- albeit not a very good one- when he maintains “We found that six debates gave candidates the platform they needed to showcase differences with their opponents while giving campaigns the flexibility they need to do other events, including joint-forums and appearances.”

Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, who already had endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, did not have a good point when, Politico reports, he wrote

It’s time for a reality check fellow Democrats. Let’s end this pointless complaining and channel our energies into every facet of what it takes to win: registering people to vote, pushing out our message, raising money, and organizing and coordinating our efforts within this great big tent we call the Democratic Party.

Not feeling the "great big tent," Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an ally of Hillary Clinton, set up a mere six debates, one of which is to take place on that great viewing night of the last Saturday before Christmas.  It seems that some Democrats are not heeding the sentiments of Mrs. Schultz or Mr. Nutter. The Boston Globe explains

Deb Kozikowski, vice chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said the chief of the Democratic National Committee, US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, had done a disservice to grass-roots volunteers by allowing Republicans to dominate the airwaves for the last month.

“How do I tell these really dedicated Democrats who work really hard from top to bottom that debates for our presidential candidates are restricted, and they’re there watching all these Republicans get all this air time?” she said. “I think about the folks at the grass roots who work day in day out, no money no glory, because they believe in democracy with a small ‘d’ and the Democratic Party with a large ‘D,’ getting bombarded with all these Republican candidates.”

And they are getting bombarded. When she announced the debate schedule, Wasserman argued the Democratic Party is focused on "strengthening the middle class versus Republicans who want to pursue out of touch and out of date policies.”

But voters are not hearing that.   They're hearing that: Republicans stand for fiscal irresponsibility and Democrats for higher taxes; Iran will drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq unless the USA withdraws its agreement with the nation; nations throughout the world have lost respect for the USA because of Barack Obama; the Second Amendment was practically written by God, who bears a striking resemblance to Ronald Reagan; Planned Parenthood must be defunded; and vaccination is a greater threat to global survival than is climate change. These are the messages because, notwithstanding minor differences, the GOP candidates are in lockstep on most issues.

As the Republican debates proceed, the GOP's perspective on issues, and hence the Party's credibility with the American people, is enhanced.  The right wing is dominating the airwaves with a message than is only barely, and faintly, rebutted.

The major fault lies with Wasserman-Schultz. But politicians like Michael Nutter who want Democrats, those of "the great big tent," to "end this pointless complaining" are enabling the chairperson.  To Michael Nutter, dissident Democrats are whining, immature children. To the Republican Party and conservative ideas, he is a dream come true.







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Yearning For Fiorina

"America's Worst CEOS: Where Are They Now?"  is the title of a CBS News MoneyWatch article from April, 2012.  

Author Steve Kobak very likely would not have imagined that one of his seven would now be running for President. Less likely still did he expect that she would be boosted for the position by the first-ever cable news network.

She didn't make the cut for the only debate that really mattered, the one televised at 8:00 p.m. eastern by CNN. So they changed the rules.

Early in the debate, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina engaged in an argument- clearly won by Trump- over their business records, after which Chris Christie complained "The fact is that we don’t want to hear about your careers, back and forth and volleying back and forth about who did well and who did poorly" (report from The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, below). Jake Tapper proceeded to give Fiorina- and not Trump- a chance to respond. "The highest calling of leadership," responded one of the worst CEO's in modern American history, "is to unlock the leadership potential in others." Tapper dared not ask her how firing 30,000 people and sending the net worth of the company hurtling downward unlocked leadership potential.









The candidates were asked by Dana Bash about Planned Parenthood, to which candidates Kasich, Cruz, and Christie gave their opinions about, of course, Planned Parenthood. But Fiorina, without either logic or subtlety,  widened the scope of the question by stating "Dana, I would like to link these two issues, both of which are incredibly important, Iran and Planned Parenthood."

Having absorbed the corporate message of promoting one of the two candidates rising in the polls (the other, Ben Carson, they were not about to promote), Bash  neglected to step in and remind the candidate the question was about Planned Parenthood, not Iran.  (In Iran, abortion is strictly prohibited after the 18th week of pregnancy. In Republican plans, it would be the 20th week.)

Most of all, there was the "most predictable question," as Democratic Strategist editor Ed Kilgore recognizes, of the debate, when Fiorina was essentially asked to repeat the audio of her very effective ad of the previous week.  Sharp enough to recognize a set-up, Fiorina responded "You know, it’s interesting to me, Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said." It was a response as predictable as the question, and as effective as a question designed to elicit a stirring soundbite.

And if as to confirm that promotion of Carly Fiorina was a prime objective of the network, there was CNN's fact check of the candidate's rant about Planned Parenthood, immediately following her rant about Iran, in which she claimed

As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it’s heart beating, it’s legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.

CNN acknowledges on its fact-checking website

The clip does show what appears to be a fully formed fetus on an operating table with its legs twitching. But the clip Fiorina references is not part of the CMP sting video but was instead taken by another anti-abortion group and was added to the sting video. The Center for Medical Progress, however, doesn't explain where the fetus video was shot, so it's not clear whether it was taken at a Planned Parenthood clinic. For its part, the women's health organization has flatly denied the accusations.

Not only is it unclear the footage was shot at a Planned Parenthood clinic, it almost surely was not. Vox's Sarah Kliff, who has watched every minute of each video, observes

The third Human Capital video has stock footage of a fetus kicking on a table — though that footage isn't from inside a Planned Parenthood. The video cites the Center for Bioethical Reform and the Grantham Collection as the sources for that footage, and never claims to have taped those images themselves.

The Center for Bioethical Reform and the Grantham Collection are both virulent anti-abortion outfits.

CNN notes that former StemExpress procurement technician is seen in the video stating "This is the most gestated fetus and closest thing to a baby I've ever seen. I'm sitting here looking at this fetus and its heart is beating and I don't know what to do." However, Kliff explains

There is no video of the images that O'Donnell describes seeing, nor is there any mention of instructions to "keep it alive so we can harvest its brain," so it's still not the footage Fiorina describes having watched. I've reached out to the Fiorina camp to see if they have a better answer.

But they still are not the scene that Fiorina describes. There's no footage of the moment O'Donnell describes, nor is there proof offered that it occurred — there's no moment to "watch," as Fiorina urged debate viewers.

After Kliff received a (largely irrelevant) reply from the Fiorinistes, she asked for a clarification. She received another video, in which the images "still are not the scene that Fiorina describes. There's no footage of the moment O'Donnell describes, nor is there proof offered that it occurred — there's no moment to 'watch,' as Fiorina urged debate viewers." Additionally,

the footage of the fetus in that video isn't from the Planned Parenthood videos. One image is of a stillborn baby, initially included in the video without the mother's permission. Other footage appears to come from a collection of stock footage of fetuses. "The stock footage was added to the video to dramatize its content," fact-checking website Politifact concluded. "We don’t know the circumstances behind this video: where it came from, under what conditions it was obtained, or even if this fetus was actually aborted (as opposed to a premature birth or miscarriage)."

Politifact rated Fiorina's claim as "mostly false" and the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck concludes "the scene Fiorina 'dares' others to watch is not present in any of the Planned Parenthood videos."

To CNN, however, Fiorina's tale was "true, but misleading."   I myself have seen images of a man bending steel in his bare hands and leaping a 100+ foot building on a single bound.  And on Thursday morning, Fiorina stated "Rest assured, I have seen the images I talked about last night," though she still has not disclosed them..

On Friday, Rush Limbaugh argued "the media" has been looking for months for a candidate to tout as the one to bring Donald Trump down.  There is a grain of truth to that but CNN has done so most visibly. Recognizing in the couple of weeks prior to the debate that the leading contender to Trump was (albeit low-keyed) culture warrior Ben Carson, the network (without a paper trail) keyed in on Carly Fiorina.

Like Trump and Carson, Fiorina had benefited from the first round, but is a more faithful corporate warrior, and had been inserted into the debate when CNN violated its own, initial, guidelines.  She's the kind of conservative Republican whom CNN and its parent company, Time-Warner, Inc., can warm up to.






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Addicts Start With Caffeine. Don't Tell Chris Christie.

Simply put: Chris Christie makes things up. (So does Carly Fiorina but this is about Chris Christie.)

Oh, as a good politician- an excellent one- and Christie generally avoids lying. However, he will leave his listeners with the wrong impression. Consistently.

After Senator Paul in Thursday's debate emphasized the Tenth Amendment and suggested that the federal government should permit states to set their own drug policy, Governor Christie cited New Jersey's use of drug courts instead of incarceration and added

You see, Jake, I’m pro-life. And I think you need to be pro-life for more than just the time in the womb. It gets tougher when they get out of the womb. And when they’re the 16-year-old drug addict in the Florida county lockup, that life is just as precious as the life in the womb.

And so, that’s why I’m for rehabilitation, why I think the war on drugs has been a failure.

As with most critics of the "war on drugs," Christie offered no evidence but of the claim but it was nonetheless a hopeful beginning. Nonetheless, the discussion immediately turned darker when- immediately after proclaiming the drug law a "failure"- Christie added

But I’ll end with this. That doesn’t mean we should be legalizing gate way drugs. And if Senator Paul thinks that the only victim is the person, look at the decrease in productivity, look at the way people get used and move on to other drugs when they use marijuana as a gateway drug, it is not them that are the only victims. Their families are the victims too, their children are the victims too, and their employers are the victims also.

The war on drugs, Christie argued, has been a failure.  With no more evidence, the governor labeled marijuana "a gateway drug," a charge which has been nearly disproved, though nicotine and alcohol do appear to be gateway drugs (Sanjay Gupta, in 2013, below).  Christie didn't call for banning cigarettes.








Of course, possession of marijuana is a victimless crime. By Christie's standards, highway construction- encouraging more drivers and hydrocarbon emissions- creates tens of millions of victims among pedestrians.

Still, the governor says marijuana use creates victims.- family members, employers, even unrelated, innocent, victims. Then he says "you can still put an emphasis on rehabilitation."  We are left with: marijuana destroys millions of people, but we won't lock people up for it.

The logic is weak; in fact, non-existent.  However, it gets worse when Christie remarks

In New Jersey, we have medical marijuana laws, which I supported and implemented. This is not medical marijuana. There’s goes as much — a further step beyond. This is recreational use of marijuana.

This is much different. And so, while he would like to use a sympathetic story to back up his point, it doesn’t work. I’m not against medical marijuana. We do it in New Jersey. But I’m against the recreational use, against marijuana.

That at least is makes a little sense and is even coherent. But it's not true, given that

The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act was first introduced by Sen. Nicholas P. Scutari (D-Middlesex, Somerset, and Union) in January 2005 and was debated for five years before being enacted and signed into law by Gov. Jon S. Corzine in the closing days of his term in January 2010.

The final law was different than the original bill, which would have allowed a patient or the patient’s caregiver to possess up to six marijuana plants.

Gov. Chris Christie, who opposed the bill as he was running for governor in 2009, was put in the position of implementing it as he entered office. He’s contrasted New Jersey’s deliberate approach with the less restrictive approaches of Colorado, which has legalized the drug, and California, where doctors prescribe it for a wider range of conditions.

New Jersey's medical marijuana law is feeble, as Governor Christie has made it.  Non-violent drug users get a shot at drug courts, Christie says, and in most cases, that does bear more fruit than incarceration. As for completely innocent ill people under the care of a doctor but who could benefit from medical marijuana, Chris Christie would like them to go elsewhere, and it's not heaven or purgatory.





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A Helping Hand

After this post in which I suggested that CNN and/or Jake Tapper slanted Thursday evening's GOP presidential debate,  I came upon Slate's Justin Peters, who criticized CNN and Jake Tapper on other grounds for their performance,  He argued

Take this exchange, for example, in which Tapper, after first indicating that he was going to go to John Kasich, instead passes him over to give Carly Fiorina a chance to respond to something that had just been said about her, explaining that “Miss Fiorina’s name was mentioned and I have to give her the opportunity to respond if she wants it,” as if that particular policy was constitutionally ordained instead of some dumb rule that CNN made up just for the purposes of this debate. 

The debate transcript reveals the following exchange:

CHRISTIE: Stop — and stop playing — and Carly — Carly, listen. You can interrupt everybody else on this stage, you’re not going to interrupt me, OK?

The fact is that we don’t want to hear about your careers, back and forth and volleying back and forth about who did well and who did poorly. You’re both successful people. Congratulations. You know who’s not successful? The middle class in this country who’s getting plowed over by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Let’s start talking about those issues tonight and stop this childish back-and-forth between the two of you.

TAPPER: Governor Kasich, I’m coming to you next, but Ms. Fiorina’s name was mentioned, and I have to give her the opportunity to respond if she wants it.

FIORINA: Well, I thought we had been hearing quite a bit about Governor Christie’s record as governor, actually. I think track records are very important. I completely agree that what’s at stake here is the future of this nation, and the future of every American.

But I do think that a track record of leadership is vital because in the end this election is about leadership. And let’s talk about what leadership is. It’s not about braggadocio, it is about challenging the status quo, solving problems, producing results.

And the highest calling of leadership is to unlock potential in others.

It's reasonable to ask:  to respond to what?  (also: who is Carly Fiorina to suggest she knows how to "unlock potential in others?"). There was nothing to respond to, only an opportunity for Fiorina to give a variation on her stump speech. She pulled off a stunt which, as Digby observed,  was met with "great acclaim from right wingers and the media alike" and demonstrated "a skill usually limited to only the best hate talk radio hosts."   The candidate claimed

On day one in the Oval office I will make two phone calls the first to my good friend Bibi Netanyahu to assure him we will stand with the state of Israel. 

The second to the Supreme leader to tell him that unless and until he opens every nuclear facility to real anytime inspections by our people not his,we the United States of America will make it as difficult as possible to move money around the global financial system. 

We can do that we don’t need anyone’s cooperation to do it. And every ally and every adversary in this world will know that the United States of America is back in the leadership business which is how we must stand with out allies. 

As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes, watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it’s heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. 

This is about the character of our nation and if we will not stand up and force President Obama to veto this bill shame on us.

The latter description is untrue, as Sarah Kliff at Vox explains, and vile.  Almost as importantly, however, Fiorina was able to take a swipe at President Obama and feed the Republican id by combining two issues without even linking them. There was little transition, as she didn't even try to connect them, preceding her mythmaking about Planned Parenthood by "as regards Planned Parenthood."

There was no linkage, and only an abrupt transition.  Yet, Tapper allowed her to continue, to thunderous applause.

CNN not only wanted Carly Fiorina, whom they had made a questionable addition to the debate, to succeed. The network also wants Donald Trump at least cut down to size, which would make for a more interesting race and possibly derail his major issue- illegal immigration- on which most members of the mainstream media disagree with the frontrunner.  Ben Carson, the second-ranking candidate prior to the second debate, is an unabashed supporter of "traditional marriage" and of Kim Davis (video below) and believes homosexuality is a choice. He is not the media's idea of a reasonable Republican,








Fiorina, a businesswoman who recently was attacked by Trump for her appearance, was the obvious choice. She did her job and now likely GOP primary voters have the opportunity to play Charlie McCarthy to the network's Edgar Bergen.







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