GOP Chairman Reince Priebus said the debate host network “should be ashamed.” The Drudge report, never one to miss a chance to exaggerate, called the CNBC moderators the “shame of the nation.”
Fellow journalists weren’t any kinder. Consider this tweet from New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, describing the commentary between the kids’ table debate and the main event: “CNBC does underscore that the only people sometimes more vapid than candidates are journalists talking about candidates.”
I’m not going to give a pass to those asking the questions. When a debate starts with the insipid question of “What’s your biggest weakness?” — a question that any job seeker encounters from the beginner HR representative before he or she gets to the hiring manager — you know it’s going to head downhill from there. Moderators quickly lost control of lines of questioning, as candidates shouted over one another as well as the moderators.
But the way the candidates twisted the moderators’ words turned what actually were some substantive questions into seeming attacks on the candidate. It’s a lot easier to accuse the media of asking “gotcha” questions than it is to give a substantive answer.