October 29, 2015

‘What Is Your Biggest Weakness?’

The first of many awful questions lobbed by CNBC debate moderators.

“What is your biggest weakness and what are you doing to address it?” That was the first of many hostile, biased, personally insulting and just plain stupid questions the 11 Republican candidates fielded from the moderators in the debate last night. Has there ever been a debate in which the moderators behaved so poorly?

Indeed, CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla’s opening question could be turned around on the moderators. He, Becky Quick and John Harwood didn’t even attempt to conceal their contempt for the candidates on stage, and they ended up making themselves the story. Perhaps that’s to be expected when, for the last 30 years, conservatives have increasing cried “foul” on Leftmedia bias, and the general public no longer trusts the press. The moderators seemed to have concluded they needn’t bother feigning objectivity, opting to move on with their Democrat activism. No wonder the audience booed them.

On the flip side, the moderators’ petulant bias prompted some great moments from the candidates who rejected the premise of the questions and turned their fire toward Democrats. Three candidates did particularly well in this department: Chris Christie, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Right off the bat, Christie parried the “weakness” question by pointing to Democrats. “I don’t see a lot of weakness on this stage, quite frankly,” he said. “Where I see the weakness is in those three people that are left on the Democratic stage. You know, I see a socialist, an isolationist and a pessimist. And for the sake of me, I can’t figure out which one is which.”

Christie consistently rejected the Big Government basis for questions, and set about to contrast with Democrats rather than his fellow Republicans. His answer to the inane fantasy football question was outstanding: “Carl, are we really talking about getting government involved in fantasy football? We have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and al-Qaida attacking us. And we’re talking about fantasy football?”

As good as Christie was, Cruz and Rubio were even better. Quintanilla asked Cruz, “Does your opposition to [the debt-limit deal in Congress] show that you’re not the kind of problem-solver American voters want?”

Cruz responded with a spectacular takedown of his leftist interrogators:

> “You know, let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions — ‘Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?’ ‘Ben Carson, can you do math?’ ‘John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?’ ‘Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?’ ‘Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?’ How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?

> "The contrast [is stark] with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was, ‘Which of you is more handsome and why?’

> "Let me be clear. The men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more common sense than every participant in the Democratic debate. That debate reflected a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. And nobody watching at home believed that any of the moderators had any intention of voting in a Republican primary. The questions that are being asked shouldn’t be trying to get people to tear into each other. It should be what are your substantive positions.”

The most memorable assault on general Leftmedia propaganda came from Rubio. “I know the Democrats have the ultimate super PAC. It’s called the mainstream media,” he said. That line could outlive this campaign.

“Last week,” Rubio elaborated, “Hillary Clinton went before a committee. She admitted she had sent emails to her family saying, ‘Hey, this attack at Benghazi was caused by al-Qaida-like elements.’ She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of a video. And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It was the week she got exposed as a liar. But she has her super PAC helping her out — the American mainstream media.”

Rubio had plenty of reason to be frustrated, though he handled it with poise. In one exchange, Harwood knowingly misrepresented Rubio’s tax plan — after Harwood had days earlier corrected himself on the same point. It was reminiscent of Candy Crowley’s false attack on Mitt Romney in 2012.

In our estimation, the losers of the debate (besides CNBC) were the candidates who accepted the moderators’ lead and attacked other Republicans (Jeb Bush), were just plain ticked off at having to suffer the presence of other Republicans (John Kasich), or could do nothing more than hit “repeat” on vacuous bluster (Donald Trump). That said, Trump did nothing to hurt himself with his supporters, so perhaps he shouldn’t be in the loser category.

On a final note, the debate focused on the economy, and that will no doubt be a key issue in the election. Immigration is an even hotter button. But the catastrophic Obama/Clinton foreign policy failures in the Middle East, Asia and Russia pose overarching and very real national security threats that are getting virtually no airtime. Those issues will come to the forefront in this election.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.