ABC's Post-Debate Liberal Slant: Raddatz Hypes How Obama 'Humanized' Issues; Weir Complains About Climate Change

October 23rd, 2012 1:19 AM

Martha Raddatz boosted President Obama on ABC after the final presidential debate on Monday evening, just as she did during the earlier vice presidential debate that she moderated. Raddatz asserted that Obama "humanized what he was talking about. He talked a lot about the troops; he talked about the survivors from 9/11; he talked about the people in Israel. So if, in fact, he was going towards the female vote, he probably got their attention with that sort of approach." [audio available here; video below the jump]

ABC's post-debate coverage also spotlighted a Tweet from Nightline's Bill Weir, who channeled something that Al Gore had whined about just minutes earlier on Twitter: "Four #debates come and go without a single question on climate change."

Diane Sawyer turned to the correspondent for her take on the debate, which had finished just minutes earlier: "Martha, you were sitting at that very table, the same table – moderated the vice president's debate. So, what did you see?"

Raddatz first replied that "I think what I didn't see was a foreign policy debate, really...we turned so quickly to the economy. We turned so quickly to domestic issues." She continued by stating that "the other thing that really surprised me is I didn't hear the term, from Mitt Romney, 'peace through strength' a single time there...he was a different candidate, in terms of the way he would approach foreign policy." The ABC journalist soon added her claim about the "humanized" remarks from the incumbent Democrat.

Less than ten minutes later, the post-debate broadcast flashed Weir's Tweet. The ABC host might have been having a flashback to four years earlier, as he hyped on the August 9, 2008 edition of World News Saturday how "after years of debate over the reality of global warming, 80 percent of those polled now say they accept it as fact."

The transcript of Martha Raddatz's commentary from ABC's Monday night coverage of the presidential debate:

DIANE SAWYER: And turning next to our senior foreign affairs correspondent, Martha Raddatz. Martha, you were sitting at that very table, the same table – moderated the vice president's debate. So, what did you see?

MARTHA RADDATZ: Well, I – I think what I didn't see was a foreign policy debate, really. (Sawyer laughs) You – we turned so quickly to the economy. We turned so quickly to domestic issues. And the other thing that really surprised me is I didn't hear the term, from Mitt Romney, 'peace through strength' a single time there. He was – he was a different candidate, in terms of the way he would approach foreign policy.


One thing I did notice with President Obama – look, not everybody looks at it like Christiane [Amanpour] and I do, and they're going to all these little policy wonk things - President Obama humanized what he was talking about. He talked a lot about the troops; he talked about the survivors from 9/11; he talked about the people in Israel. So if, in fact, he was going towards the female vote, he probably got their attention with that sort of approach.