Are Tim Russert and Brian Williams the Worst Debate Moderators Ever?

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 11:14 AM on January 16, 2008.

While political observers are understandably divided about who "won" last night's Democratic debate in Las Vegas, it seems everyone who watched can come together in agreement on one underlying point: the moderators were truly awful.

About a half-hour into the debate, an angry man started shouting, interrupting the event while security personnel intervened. Usually, these protestors are easy to dismiss as random nuts, but in this case, the heckler had a legitimate beef.

About 22 minutes into the Nevada Democratic debate, a heckler in the audience interrupted the proceedings, saying "these are f**cking race-based questions coming from you two, these are race-based questions..."

There was silence from the candidates and the moderators for about eight seconds with no mention of the heckler. Tim Russert, continued with his question for Sen. Hillary Clinton which focused on her characterization that Sen. Obama "is raising false hopes."

I'm not sure if I'm prepared to say it was literally the worst I've seen -- the CNN debate in November was pretty offensive -- but by any reasonable measure, last night was breathtakingly bad.

The first question of any substance came 40 minutes into the event. 40. The entire debate was two hours lone, which means Tim Russert, Brian Williams, and NBC's Natalie Morales (who was relegated to reading emails to the candidates) spent the first third of the debate covering nothing but process, politics, and horserace.

Russert, in particular, wanted to explore the race-based dispute between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in extraordinary detail. I've seen some suggestions that Obama and Clinton looked tired last night. My take was entirely different -- they were bored by questions about an issue they were prepared to forget.

At one point, Morales asked John Edwards, "[W]hat is a white male to do running against these historic candidacies?" People laughed, and if you listened closely, you could Clinton say, "Poor John." I agreed wholeheartedly, except I was also thinking, "Poor us."

On and on it went. Robert Johnson. "Buddy system." The black vote. The woman vote. "Likable enough." Russert added: "I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness." I half-expected him to ask each of them to explain what kind of tree they'd be.

When the debate finally got to the substance, the moderators were hardly any better. Russert screwed up the Iraq/2013 point badly. The ROTC question was silly. Russert inexplicably suggested Edwards shouldn't talk to Musharraf in Pakistan. The last question of the night asked when the candidates decided to run for president -- as if that were important.

The candidates keep getting better in these debates. The moderators keep getting worse.

Tagged as: media, clinton, obama, edwards, democratic debate, las vegas, russert, williams

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.