In CNN's Republican primary debate, "of the 74 questions that were asked, 55 were with Republicans having to answer to other Republicans about Republican issues, pitting one Republican against the other," Media Research Center founder and president Brent Bozell informed Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto on his Oct. 13 Coast to Coast program. In other words, Republicans were pitted against each other by the moderator Jake Tapper.
By contrast, judging by Democratic debate moderator Anderson Cooper's recent comments, CNN will "do just the opposite" with "softballs" lobbed at the debate participants so as to enable them "to attack the Republicans so they don't have to confront each other" over policy disagreements within the party. "It's two completely different worldviews, and two different standards on the same network."
As the MRC's NewsBusters's Geoff Dickens noted on Monday afternoon:
Cooper has indicated he will not conduct the Democratic debate in the same way, as he told CNN's Brian Stelter on the October 11 edition of Reliable Sources: "I don’t think this is a debate where you’ll have candidates attack each other. We’ve not seen this on the campaign trail." When Stelter asked: "So you’re saying trying to set them up for a faceoff isn’t something that’s probably going to work?" Cooper responded: "I don’t think so. First of all, I’m always uncomfortable with that notion of setting people up in order to kind of promote some sort of a faceoff. I think these are all serious people. This is a serious debate. They want to talk about the issues. And I want to give them an opportunity to do that."
To watch the full Cavuto Coast to Coast segment, click play on the video embed below:
