There is a stark difference between asking tough questions and following up aggressively vs. trying to poison the well with your own opinion and then trying to slap someone down when they don't conform to your premise and I think that CNBC crossed the line last night.  Not only did they cross the line, they blatantly crossed the line.  It got to the point that about a quarter of the way through started to basically unite against the biased moderators.  I've never really seen anything like it.  I am curious to see how this plays out. 

 

These are strange times that we live in.  There has always been a wink and a nod that the mainstream media leaned at least a little left of center. Most republican candidates in the past just accepted it and tried to work around it.  Now I think that we are dealing with something a little different. In the last presidential election cycle we had George Stephanopolis ask a random question about a policy position that no republican holds (do states have the power to ban birth control) and the very asking of the question started the war on women narrative.  Then you have Candy Crowley working on Obama's behalf about Benghazi in the second debate.  Those were direct examples of bias dressed in the veil of objectivity. 

 

Then a few months ago Chris Mathews made the slip, when talking about Hilary Clinton, when he said "Don't worry we'll get you in there."  This of course implied that the main stream media would in fact as an agent directly on her behalf.  Since that time the viel has gotten progressively thinner and now we are dealing with out and out open hostility towards anyone with an R after their names. 

 

Comic book Villiain, why don't you just go home and resign, you know that you were a rotten CEO why don't you just admit it, Trump you can't build a successful business and you know it.  This debate was supposed to be about economics.  

 

We were warned about this.  It's gotten worse and worse as the years have gone by.  this is the second debate where 45 minutes in one of the candidates had to point out the fact that the questions had absolutely nothing to do with policy positions.  Its only going to degenerate further through this election cycle.  WHY?  Because its the republicans turn.  Obviously the presidency isn't a hallpass, but historically it is extremely rare for a party to have a third consecutive term in the executive.  In the case of Reagan/Bush you had the greatest peace time economic expansion in history...  In the case of the short dynasty of FDR you had the champion of the working man in the face of the great depression and that covers the last 75 years. 

 

Like him or dislike him, the economic performance over the last 8 years hasn't produced the kind of let the good times roll love of the democratic party to up end the historical trend away from third terms.  So what's going to have to happen?  They're going to have to go negative, and I mean really negative.  We're talking "If republicans win they are going to burn down black churches AND the barbeque joint around the street"  It's not just that they hate gay people they hate people period.  It's not just that they are wrong on taxes but they want to charge YOU interest on the money that they over confiscated.  It's not just that they want to put ground troops in IRAQ they want to put ground troops in the HOOD, that sort of thing.

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