CBS reporter to Jay Carney: Obama ‘made a mistake and you can’t admit it’

(The Washington Free Beacon) CBS News reporter Bill Plante challenged White House press secretary Jay Carney on President Obama’s statement Monday that for the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act would be an “extraordinary, unprecedented step,” during a Thursday press briefing.

BILL PLANTE: What he said on Monday was an obvious misspoken moment because he talked about the court not being in a position to overturn an of Congress—

JAY CARNEY: Bill—

PLANTE: You’re standing up there twisting yourself in knots, because he made a mistake and you can’t admit it.

CARNEY: No, no, Bill, I am acknowledging that—you’re sharing in the righteous indignation here that your colleagues—

PLANTE: No, I’m just being—I’m just noting that you’re twisting yourself in knots.

CARNEY: The president spoke in answer to a question, relatively briefly, and in the context of this case, made the statement that there is no judicial precedent—that there is long judicial precedent which would argue that the court should not overturn this law. I totally grant to you that he did not refer to the commerce clause. He did not refer to the whole context. I think he believed that that was understood. Clearly, some folks—notably the person sitting in that chair and others—missed that. And, uh, and, uh—no, no, look. There’s a lot of—it’s kind of ridiculous to believe that the president wasn’t talking about the context of the case, but I completely concede that he did not describe the context when he took the question and answered it on Monday. He then, when asked again Tuesday, provided the full context. And so, did he clarify his comments? Absolutely. Did he expand on them? Absolutely. Yes, Scott. God, you guys. It’s your job to come up with clichés—game on, and things like that. But I’m not going to engage in that.

CBS reporter to Carney: President ‘made a mistake and you can’t admit it’

Gingrich schools Pelley on “rule of law” on terrorists

by Ed Morrissey 

(Hot Air) I missed tonight’s CBS debate, mainly because I spent a great evening with some of my blogging friends here at FreedomWorks’ BlogCon2011.  When I returned, though, I got a few messages about one particular moment in the debate, where CBS moderator attempted to lecture Newt Gingrich on the “rule of law” regarding American citizens who join the enemy to wage war against the US.  Big mistake.

The two worst aspects of this exchange?  The smug look on Pelley’s face when he challenged Gingrich on this point, and the “no” you can hear him utter just as Gingrich started his smackdown of Pelley.  Regardless of the context of this exchange, this is a perfect encapsulation of why these media debates are utterly worthless, and why the Republican Party needs to force a format change.  Pelley isn’t running for President, and we don’t need to have Pelley debating the presidential candidates.  We need them to debate each other.  It’s only made more ridiculous when a moderator-turned-participant ends up as far out of his depth as Pelley was on this question.

As I mentioned, I didn’t watch the debate, but from my Twitter feed and a few e-mails, it seems that many thought that Gingrich and Romney were strong as usual, Rick Perry did surprisingly well, and Herman Cain spent too much time deflecting with promises to have a team of experts look at the issues once he’s elected President. I don’t know how Rick Santorum did in the debate, but his team sent out their spin e-mail with the subject line, “Draft Template,” which leads me to conclude that he at least flunked the post-debate.  Either that or he’s looking to back a new candidate named John R. Template for the Republican nomination.

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The Big Loser of the Night: CBS

From Marc A. Thiessen at National Review's The Corner:

If there was a loser on the debate stage tonight, it was CBS. First, they scheduled their debate on a Saturday night between two major football games. Then they decide to only broadcast the first hour of their 90-minute debate. Then their Internet feed failed for the final 30 minutes. This was CBS’s first and only debate — and it showed.

Scott Pelley was a terrible moderator. He treated the men who might be the next commander in chief like schoolchildren, cutting them off in mid-sentence, lecturing them to answer his questions. He even lectured Newt Gingrich on policy, telling him that killing “terrorist suspects” is “not the rule of law.” Big mistake. Newt smacked him down, explaining that we are at war and in war we are allowed to kill the enemy without a court order.

This was CBS’s first and only debate — and it showed.

Of the candidates, Rick Perry had his best debate by far. His construct of starting at zero on foreign aid with every country (including Israel) and then deciding from there what is in our national interests got good applause, and both Newt and Romney openly embraced it. He had several self-effacing jokes about that agency he forgot about at the last debate (Energy) which got big (friendly) laughs from the crowd. Despite Pelley’s blatant efforts to trip him up, he did not trip. Who would have imagined that Perry’s best debate would be on foreign policy?

 

Newt had a very good night as well. In addition to smacking down Pelley on killing terrorists, he refused to take the bait in Pelley’s effort to start a fight between him and Romney. He was clear and articulate and will only enhance his growing following with his performance.

Romney put in another strong night. His best moment was when he was asked if he would negotiate with the Taliban: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists, I won’t negotiate with the Taliban.”

Bachmann got off several good lines, declaring that Obama stands with Occupy Wall Street but not with Israel, and that when it comes to terrorist interrogation, Obama is letting the ACLU run the CIA.

Cain seemed to struggle and was out of his element. Seemed like every answer seemed was: I will gather the facts and consult with my commanders/cabinet. His best moment was when he was asked about waterboarding and declared clearly: “I do not agree with torture. Waterboarding not torture. It’s an enhanced interrogation technique.” (Romney was not asked, but his campaign tweeted his agreement with Cain).

It was a good discussion, undermined by Pelley’s poor moderating and CBS’s failure to broadcast effectively. Fortunately, there will be another discussion of foreign policy and national security soon: the AEI/Heritage/CNN debate on November 22. It will be in prime time on a Tuesday — on a network that knows what it is doing.

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