b*****d
发帖数: 61690 | 1 On that night, when CNBC registered its highest audience ever, it’s not
known if Harwood also got approval from the Clinton campaign to ask Donald
Trump: “Is this a comic-book version of a presidential campaign?”
Harwood was criticized harshly after that debate — and rightly so. The
Republican National Committee even went so far to punish NBC as a whole,
stripping it of what would have been a highly rated primary debate later in
the cycle. It was a black eye for CNBC by all accounts.
So did Harwood feel any contrition, any remorse that he represented his
network so poorly and with such partisanship?
Nope.
Instead, he bragged to what is apparently the only entity that really
matters to him: the Clinton campaign.
“I imagine that Obama feels some (sad) vindication at this demonstration of
his years-long point about the opposition party veering off the rails,”
Harwood wrote to Podesta afterward. “I certainly am feeling that way with
respect to how I questioned Trump at our debate.”
The following question was asked on Sept. 21, 2015, via email, to the
chairman of a major presidential campaign, John Podesta: “What should I ask
Jeb?”
At the time, Jeb Bush was still a leading candidate to challenge Hillary
Clinton for the White House — and had more money behind him.
The question didn’t come from a campaign surrogate or an opinion host — it
came from the chief Washington correspondent at CNBC, John Harwood. And
just to make sure he hit Bush where the Clinton campaign — which still
viewed the former Florida governor as its most likely opponent for 2016 —
wanted him to most, Harwood went to Clinton’s campaign chief to do all the
thinking for him.
It should be noted that the title “chief Washington correspondent” means
Harwood is not an opinion host or a partisan pundit — he’s one who
represents the network as objective and nonpartisan. It also means he cannot
consult with opposition campaigns for advice — nor can he provide advice
back to a campaign, which Harwood has on several occasions via recent
WikiLeaks dumps.
The “chief Washington correspondent” also tends to be picked to moderate
presidential debates in the primaries, as Harwood was in November of 2015.
On that night, when CNBC registered its highest audience ever, it’s not
known if Harwood also got approval from the Clinton campaign to ask Donald
Trump: “Is this a comic-book version of a presidential campaign?”
Harwood was criticized harshly after that debate — and rightly so. The
Republican National Committee even went so far to punish NBC as a whole,
stripping it of what would have been a highly rated primary debate later in
the cycle. It was a black eye for CNBC by all accounts.
So did Harwood feel any contrition, any remorse that he represented his
network so poorly and with such partisanship?
Nope.
Instead, he bragged to what is apparently the only entity that really
matters to him: the Clinton campaign.
“I imagine that Obama feels some (sad) vindication at this demonstration of
his years-long point about the opposition party veering off the rails,”
Harwood wrote to Podesta afterward. “I certainly am feeling that way with
respect to how I questioned Trump at our debate.”
Now, if I’m Mark Hoffman, president of CNBC, there’s a 100 percent chance
I’m having a serious conversation with Harwood about his future.
The optics of Harwood advising a presidential campaign while allowing the
campaign to write questions for his network are not only horrible, but the
hubris he displayed afterward is a huge turnoff to at least half CNBC’s
audience, which now views Harwood as a comic-book version of a chief
Washington correspondent.
But don’t expect Harwood or Hoffman to ever apologize. And don’t expect
Harwood — unless he’s offered a dream job as economic adviser in a Clinton
administration — to ever leave the network.
If Harwood does stay, a title change is in order.
Moving forward, Harwood should be referred to as a political analyst and
contributor for CNBC, which is the same title Karl Rove holds for Fox News
and Steve Schmidt holds for MSNBC. “Senior political commentator” would be
fine as well, which is how David Axelrod is referred to on CNN.
In the meantime, John Harwood will be hosting election night coverage for
CNBC on Tuesday night.
If John Podesta pops up for a friendly interview on the network that night,
you’ll know exactly how that came to fruition. |
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