Did Debate Commission Effect The Questions Asked

One of the biggest outrages in this election, and there have been so many, is the fact that not one question in all the four Presidential and Vice Presidential debates concerned climate change, clearly one of the most important problems facing not just our country but the entire planet. On the other hand, the Huffington Post reports that a full four questions focused on the national debt and the solvency of Social Security and Medicaid and all four questions cited the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), the Pete Peterson funded deficit obsessed organization. Much ink has been spilt by many economists and even lowly bloggers like myself that attempts to expose the fallacies behind a lot of what the CRFB declares. Yet they still get cited continually even by the moderators of the presidential debates. Well the Huffington Post notes that there may be a very good reason for that. Five members of the sixteen member Board of Directors of the Commission on Presidential Debates are connected to the CRFB or similar Peterson-created entities. Four of these members have senior leadership positions in those Peterson entities. Now the debate moderators supposedly have total discretion over the questions they ask. But considering the results where there were no questions about climate change and four questions related to the national debt and Social Security, you have to wonder whether the moderators were either chosen by the Commission because it was known that they would be likely to ask these questions or whether the moderators felt a pressure to please their masters in order to be invited back to moderate again. Either way, it resulted in a travesty for the country and the planet.