Gwen Ifill: Letter Grade

Personally I though she did well. She avoided appearing partial to either candidate which prevented the RW from using it as a talking point after the debate when Palin tanked. This put the focus where it belonged, on Palin instead of Gwen.

It's not the job of a debate moderator to press the candidates on their answers IMO, and when they have done so in the past it always makes them look bad and never really helps much. The candidate just sidesteps the follow-up as well, and it wastes time that could be used on other questions.

Follow-up is better left to those interviewing the candidate (such as Katie Couric).

I give Gwen an A

Nothing at all meaningful or that made either one of them pause for thought.

and use her talking points or completely ignore the questions. Just the fact that she couldn't even answer some of the most obvious questions was telling.

Her spoof on SNL was great. That look of disbelief was priceless. If Ifill had at least done that I would have graded her higher.

I'm sure she wanted to avoid any controversy that might lead to negative reaction to her book (not that many wing nuts were gonna buy a book on black politicians anyway).

I've never been very impressed with her. Her performance Thursday just reinforced my impression.

I gave her a C-/D+.

EDIT: And her "it's not my job" bullshit defense is the 2nd biggest.

She sucked.

but again there was no follow up questions asked or given.

She didn't moderate anything. She let Tina recite all of the right-wing talking points without interruption. Whe Tina said "I'm not going to answer any questions", Ifil should have said, "OK. then I won't ask you any", and let Biden have the hour.

abortion, creationism, paying for medical exams after rape.

If she had been any firmer they would have gone on and on about her "bias", book and *wink* *wink* her race.

Ifill adds nothing.