Against my better judgment, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will be participating in a Fox News town hall this evening at 6 PM ET. Share your thoughts about this - cough, cough - fair and balanced event after the jump.
Caricatures of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders by DonkeyHotey via Creative Commons license.
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Kevin Koster commented
2016-03-08 14:49:16 -0500
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I agree with EOF for the most part. Fox didn’t do the completely brazen red meat toss I expected, but their treatment of these candidates was intended to subtly demean them.
I’m not surprised that the real news networks are ignoring Fox News’ conduct wherever they can. Because Fox News is not a real news network and the other networks are appropriately dismissing them other than to chuckle at the most outrageous moments of right wing bile.
As we noted, Sanders only did this interview as a desperate measure – that it might raise his profile and also embarrass Clinton. Doesn’t appear to have had either effect, and now we’re headed into primaries where his delegate insufficiency will begin to grow to colossal levels.
And I agree that this was a small test for Hillary Clinton as a prep for her upcoming debates with Trump this fall. I tend to doubt any of them will happen on Fox News.
And I wouldn’t worry about Ted Cruz. He’s over 80 delegates behind, and will be up to 200 delegates behind within the next week. His interviews now are betraying a growing panic. He’s now frantically trying to beg the other candidates to get out of the race, partly for his own ego, and partly because he knows he’s out of room now and on the verge of a significant humiliation.
I’m not surprised that the real news networks are ignoring Fox News’ conduct wherever they can. Because Fox News is not a real news network and the other networks are appropriately dismissing them other than to chuckle at the most outrageous moments of right wing bile.
As we noted, Sanders only did this interview as a desperate measure – that it might raise his profile and also embarrass Clinton. Doesn’t appear to have had either effect, and now we’re headed into primaries where his delegate insufficiency will begin to grow to colossal levels.
And I agree that this was a small test for Hillary Clinton as a prep for her upcoming debates with Trump this fall. I tend to doubt any of them will happen on Fox News.
And I wouldn’t worry about Ted Cruz. He’s over 80 delegates behind, and will be up to 200 delegates behind within the next week. His interviews now are betraying a growing panic. He’s now frantically trying to beg the other candidates to get out of the race, partly for his own ego, and partly because he knows he’s out of room now and on the verge of a significant humiliation.
Eyes On Fox commented
2016-03-08 11:34:22 -0500
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Bemused,
I just showed up to make the same observation. It’s like there’s a mainstream media blackout of the Fox News town hall. NBC’s “Today”, for example, ignored it in favor of Der Furor’s latest furor over his Nazi-like audience salutes as they pledge allegiance to their klandidate.
If Bernie was hoping for some exposure outside of the Fox News bubble I’m not seeing it.
I just showed up to make the same observation. It’s like there’s a mainstream media blackout of the Fox News town hall. NBC’s “Today”, for example, ignored it in favor of Der Furor’s latest furor over his Nazi-like audience salutes as they pledge allegiance to their klandidate.
If Bernie was hoping for some exposure outside of the Fox News bubble I’m not seeing it.
Bemused commented
2016-03-08 07:14:50 -0500
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EOF: I agree with you on all counts but can’t help seeing something positive in the fact that they actually made an effort, however unwillingly it was made.
Not so much as to expect any major improvement as the post-debate coverage has been particularly nasty so the scales are skewed once again. Even the CNN “coverage” has been the usual Fox-lite: more subtle but GOP-slanted nonetheless.
Couldn’t stand the F&F bunch this morning.
Not so much as to expect any major improvement as the post-debate coverage has been particularly nasty so the scales are skewed once again. Even the CNN “coverage” has been the usual Fox-lite: more subtle but GOP-slanted nonetheless.
Couldn’t stand the F&F bunch this morning.
Eyes On Fox commented
2016-03-08 06:58:48 -0500
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Bemused,
While it wasn’t as nasty as it could be certainly [by Fox News propaganda factory standards], I thought Fox News’ town hall overall sucked badly. I only kept with it as an observer of Fox, not because I found it helpful as a voter.
The Fox News debates of Republicans have framed the debates 100% in issues conservative primary and caucus voters would be interested in. In other words, even tough questions are helping their voter block make choices.
The Fox News Democratic town hall was mostly framed as right of center voters or outright conservatives probing candidates in ways potential Democratic could care less about.
Much of the problem is Bret Baier can’t help himself but ask questions as a Republican opposed to Democrats. The rest of the problem is while Fox News certainly stuffed the room with pro-Bernie and pro-Hillary voters judging by the warm welcome and cheers, that’s mostly not who asked the questions.
The bottom line, as a liberal, I didn’t hear the questions I’d like to have asked to probe and differentiate the Democratic candidates. Quite to the contrary.
Finally, Bret was tougher on Hillary in his questions than Bernie in keeping with Fox’s theme of tipping the scales Bernie’s way. His bulls**t grew eye-roll tiresome quickly.
I happened to watch a stream of Bret and Greta post-debate attacking Hillary for her email server responses which summed up nicely as they think she’s lying just because they’d like to think she’s lying. Why? Reasons. Starting with they’re so grossly biased if any other reporter in the mainstream media said such crap about their Republican candidate buddies they’d call for their resignations.
The only good news is this is a warm up for whichever Democrat gets the nomination because this is a mild test of how it’ll be debating Trump or Cruz.
While it wasn’t as nasty as it could be certainly [by Fox News propaganda factory standards], I thought Fox News’ town hall overall sucked badly. I only kept with it as an observer of Fox, not because I found it helpful as a voter.
The Fox News debates of Republicans have framed the debates 100% in issues conservative primary and caucus voters would be interested in. In other words, even tough questions are helping their voter block make choices.
The Fox News Democratic town hall was mostly framed as right of center voters or outright conservatives probing candidates in ways potential Democratic could care less about.
Much of the problem is Bret Baier can’t help himself but ask questions as a Republican opposed to Democrats. The rest of the problem is while Fox News certainly stuffed the room with pro-Bernie and pro-Hillary voters judging by the warm welcome and cheers, that’s mostly not who asked the questions.
The bottom line, as a liberal, I didn’t hear the questions I’d like to have asked to probe and differentiate the Democratic candidates. Quite to the contrary.
Finally, Bret was tougher on Hillary in his questions than Bernie in keeping with Fox’s theme of tipping the scales Bernie’s way. His bulls**t grew eye-roll tiresome quickly.
I happened to watch a stream of Bret and Greta post-debate attacking Hillary for her email server responses which summed up nicely as they think she’s lying just because they’d like to think she’s lying. Why? Reasons. Starting with they’re so grossly biased if any other reporter in the mainstream media said such crap about their Republican candidate buddies they’d call for their resignations.
The only good news is this is a warm up for whichever Democrat gets the nomination because this is a mild test of how it’ll be debating Trump or Cruz.
Bemused commented
2016-03-08 05:02:35 -0500
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I take that back: am listening to the town hall meeting in full and am very happy with the performances both of the candidates and of the foxy host. There was a lot of enthusiastic support from the audience. Although that’s not a good thing per se, it’s so refreshing to see it on Fox.
Yesterday, I’d seen one of those Luntz focus groups – ostensibly of dems – and he also tried to be less than slanted in favour of the GOP. But it was too hard for him and he slipped into at least a couple of Pavlovian lapsuses intended to restore the balance in favour of the GOP.
To my mind, the foxy behaviour during both the town hall and the focus group are revealing of the possibility that they may be realising that they are losing and losing very very badly.
PS: the interview of Trump by Hannity was embarrassing, with Hannity actually feeding the substantive answers to Trump.
Yesterday, I’d seen one of those Luntz focus groups – ostensibly of dems – and he also tried to be less than slanted in favour of the GOP. But it was too hard for him and he slipped into at least a couple of Pavlovian lapsuses intended to restore the balance in favour of the GOP.
To my mind, the foxy behaviour during both the town hall and the focus group are revealing of the possibility that they may be realising that they are losing and losing very very badly.
PS: the interview of Trump by Hannity was embarrassing, with Hannity actually feeding the substantive answers to Trump.
Bemused commented
2016-03-08 03:00:56 -0500
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Didn’t bother to stay up as I’d counted on the usual rerun around noon but the latter didn’t happen because it’s CNN not FNC that does that. CNN ran a brief “highlights” segment limited to sound bites. Very little on substantive issues. According to this thread, the Foxies tried desperately to behave like a proper news source, probably to build up some creds for future appearances. That’s good, actually, even though I don’t expect them to have much staying power. Watching them try will be entertaining.
What’s been bothering me more and more, recently, is that the coverage of the Dem race by CNN and therefore most of the European channels, is based almost entirely on race. (Education is sometimes mentioned but not nearly enough). The focus on race draws attention to something that I feel should be a marginal factor at best. (My admittedly utopian dream is a world of colour-blind, gender-blind, faith-blind voters.) It would be a lot better to focus on economic categories (e.g. “source of livelihood”, with subdivisions within the broad categories like blue collar and white collar, salaried and self-employed, agriculture, industry, services, civil servants, etc., etc.).
What’s been bothering me more and more, recently, is that the coverage of the Dem race by CNN and therefore most of the European channels, is based almost entirely on race. (Education is sometimes mentioned but not nearly enough). The focus on race draws attention to something that I feel should be a marginal factor at best. (My admittedly utopian dream is a world of colour-blind, gender-blind, faith-blind voters.) It would be a lot better to focus on economic categories (e.g. “source of livelihood”, with subdivisions within the broad categories like blue collar and white collar, salaried and self-employed, agriculture, industry, services, civil servants, etc., etc.).
Eyes On Fox commented
2016-03-07 23:27:57 -0500
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Commercial break as Clinton half starts.
Sanders half not very good on Fox’s part. Only last question on infrastructure of any interest to me, your friendly lib. Health care question approached from odd transitional angle. Too bad, needs in-depth discussion but at least doctor asking question seemed to be an independent.
Sanders did well.
Okay, Hillary is in the house.
She gets Libya zinger and abortion zinger back to back. Bret showing great restraint [chortle] by waiting this long to shotgun her with series of Email-gate questions.
Having had the benefit of watching Bret post debate doing circle jerk with Greta first, I realize Hillary’s excellent rebuttal to Bret’s email questions were all for nothing. They’re both rejecting all she said without explanation to FUD up the room. Sorry, Hillary. You wasted a trip.
Bret segment segment sucked but Hillary is on fire conversing with crowd. Very engaging, very informative.
Like Sanders, she’s contrasting her policies to her opponents. Unlike the Republicans it’s all substantive, not nasty.
Whoops. Fox slips in the skeptical Obamacare questioner. Hillary handling well but lacking in specific things she’d do. Did room just get a bit foggy? 😉
All over. Can’t wait for Bernie and Hillary to get huge bump in polls from all those crossover Fox News viewers. 👍
Sanders half not very good on Fox’s part. Only last question on infrastructure of any interest to me, your friendly lib. Health care question approached from odd transitional angle. Too bad, needs in-depth discussion but at least doctor asking question seemed to be an independent.
Sanders did well.
Okay, Hillary is in the house.
She gets Libya zinger and abortion zinger back to back. Bret showing great restraint [chortle] by waiting this long to shotgun her with series of Email-gate questions.
Having had the benefit of watching Bret post debate doing circle jerk with Greta first, I realize Hillary’s excellent rebuttal to Bret’s email questions were all for nothing. They’re both rejecting all she said without explanation to FUD up the room. Sorry, Hillary. You wasted a trip.
Bret segment segment sucked but Hillary is on fire conversing with crowd. Very engaging, very informative.
Like Sanders, she’s contrasting her policies to her opponents. Unlike the Republicans it’s all substantive, not nasty.
Whoops. Fox slips in the skeptical Obamacare questioner. Hillary handling well but lacking in specific things she’d do. Did room just get a bit foggy? 😉
All over. Can’t wait for Bernie and Hillary to get huge bump in polls from all those crossover Fox News viewers. 👍
Eyes On Fox commented
2016-03-07 22:56:39 -0500
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Nice. Bret dumps abortion zinger in Sander’s lap. The question is a bit nasty by implication: ‘Can you name a single circumstance during a pregnancy where you think abortion should be illegal?’
Switch to an obvious Democrat [chortle] skeptical on Obama’s executive actions who wants Sander’s assurance he’ll work with [his fellow] Republicans.
I hear lots of applause so I know Dems are in the house. Will they be allowed to speak?
Can I endure? 😜
Switch to an obvious Democrat [chortle] skeptical on Obama’s executive actions who wants Sander’s assurance he’ll work with [his fellow] Republicans.
I hear lots of applause so I know Dems are in the house. Will they be allowed to speak?
Can I endure? 😜
Eyes On Fox commented
2016-03-07 22:47:50 -0500
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Don’t know if I’ll stay up for entire stream of this town hall but 1st question from audience is conservative Christian genocide one and 2nd one Trump supporter who doesn’t look happy at Sander’s reply on taxation.
How many Democrats asked questions of Republican candidates at their town halls? Just asking.
How many Democrats asked questions of Republican candidates at their town halls? Just asking.
john howard commented
2016-03-07 21:09:12 -0500
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I was holding my vote to see who would really be for the American people,but now I will not vote for either of these kissass,to go on FAUX FAKE NEWS is a slap in the face so to hell with both of these spinless DINO.
Aria Prescott commented
2016-03-07 19:55:44 -0500
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I had to turn the volume way down for Clinton. Seriously, does she have hearing problems? What’s with the outdoor voice?
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 19:01:36 -0500
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There were some decent questions for Clinton, mostl from the audience – about college tuition, ObamaCare and working with GOP.
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 18:40:59 -0500
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Then comes does a child have any rights before it’s born?
And now email questions.
And now email questions.
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 18:36:10 -0500
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First “fair and balanced” question for Hillary is whether Libya is her “biggest failure.”
It’s a fair question but nothing that tough was asked of Bernie.
It’s a fair question but nothing that tough was asked of Bernie.
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 18:22:17 -0500
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Big applause when Bernie says he believes it’s wrong for government to tell women what to do with their own body. He also dinged those who complain about big government trying to control a woman’s body.
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 18:15:17 -0500
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Trump supporter asks a question at Dem town hall and makes gratuitous remark that he thinks HRC is dishonest and trustworthy. Fair and balanced already.
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 18:11:24 -0500
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Baier: Do you share concerns Clinton is not honest and trustworthy?
Bernie didn’t take the bait but he didn’t knock it away either. He said people from VT know him and support him.
Bernie didn’t take the bait but he didn’t knock it away either. He said people from VT know him and support him.
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 18:07:01 -0500
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So far OK, but I suspect that like the GOP debate last week, the gotchas will come later.
Ellen commented
2016-03-07 18:02:42 -0500
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Who are the people on stage? Fake Democrats? Or did Fox stack the audience with Bernie Sanders supporters?
Kevin Koster commented
2016-03-07 18:01:48 -0500
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Sanders is desperate. He knows that after tomorrow, he’ll be up to 300 delegates behind, and after the 15th, he’ll be so far behind he won’t be able to see her. Clinton simply doesn’t want to give him or Fox News the ability to say that she was too afraid to show up in the same venue as him. Sadly, for both of them, this will be an extremely unfortunate idea.
Isaiah Jacobs commented
2016-03-07 17:43:14 -0500
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Bret Baier’s first question will be:
Why do the Democrats hate America?
Democrats should NEVER have Fox News sponsor any Democratic event. WTF are they thinking??
Why do the Democrats hate America?
Democrats should NEVER have Fox News sponsor any Democratic event. WTF are they thinking??