-By Warner Todd Huston
Apparently, former ABC News reporter Carol Simpson is a disgruntled debate moderator. In an interview conducted after the recent 2012 debate, Simpson claimed that she was relegated to being the “Oprah” of moderators. Further, she asserted that women are discriminated against as debate moderators. She was even unhappy that they made her wear high-heeled shoes when she moderated the 1992 debates.
In the interview conducted by Chicago Magazine, Simpson rated Candy Crowley’s performance and talked of her own night decades ago as a debate moderator.
Unsurprisingly, Simpson thought Crowley did a “fabulous job.” Amusingly, she almost seemed to say that maybe Crowley was taking her safety into her own hands because Romney and Obama might have “come to blows” on that stage.
Simpson went on to wrongfully claim that Crowley had “done her homework” and that it was a good thing she interjected herself into the Libya discussion. Rack Simpson up as yet another liberal that imagines being a “journalist” gives them the right to ignore debate rules and try to make themselves the subject of the event.
Simpson also complained that when she was given the role of moderator in 1992 she wasn’t allowed to interject herself into the proceedings — you know, they expected her to be a real moderator, not a participant. Simpson was vexed by not being allowed to be a fourth wheel along with Republican George H.W. Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot.
“I couldn’t bring in another topic or delve deeper. I think [Crowley] fought with the Commission and won. I was the lady with the mic. I was told it was to be an Oprah-style debate,” she grumbled.
It seems she wasn’t too find of being asked to wear high heels during her debate, either.
“Walking around was intimidating; and it wasn’t like I was wearing sneakers. I was in heels, and, as a reporter, I wasn’t used to wearing those. It was tricky navigating the wires on the floor.”
Simpson was also upset that Rush Limbaugh has called her a “feminazi.” While she goes on to joke that she must have “gotten to him,” it might be apropos to note that she is still talking about him, too, so maybe Rush got to her, as well.
But the most interesting thing she had to say was about the role women have been given at the debates. And she thinks that women have gotten the worst end of the deal.
The two white guys, [PBS’s] Jim Lehrer and [CBS’s] Bob Schieffer, get to be the sole moderators, write their own questions, be face to face with the candidates. Martha Raddatz [of ABC News] gets the vice presidential debate, which really isn’t as important; decisions aren’t made based on what [the VP candidates] say. Candy gets the Town Hall. Women were relegated to secondary status.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that there were lower classes of debates!
Naturally, this “news” reader admits that she is sold out to Obama. At the end of the debate she admits to having been an activist for team Obama.
It seems as though Mrs. Simpson doesn’t look back fondly on being an historic choice for moderating a presidential debate. Being the first woman and first minority wasn’t enough for her.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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