Thin-Skinned GOP Can’t Handle CNBC’s Mundane Questions

Don't interupt me, I'm being dramatically shouty right now.

From the tremendous Green Miles:
The biggest takeaway from the first Republican presidential debates: These people spend so much time inside the protective cocoon of conservative media, allowed to blame every problem or shortcoming on President Obama, that the slightest encounter with the sunlight of our fact-based world burns them to the bone.

I don't know. I was absent that day.

Even the most basic policy questions are taken as shocking violations of the rules of public discourse with the GOP candidates painting themselves as the helpless victims of those big, bad reporters. From CNN’s Dylan Byers:

Republican presidential candidates tore into CNBC’s moderators at Wednesday night’s GOP debate, issuing the sharpest attacks on the mainstream media of the 2016 election cycle.

Sen. Ted Cruz accused the moderators of trying to instigate a cage match, Sen. Marco Rubio called the media a super PAC for Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump slammed the “ridiculous questions.”

What examples did they give?

No, I am NOT picking my nose!

Rubio, asked to respond to a Florida Sun Sentinel editorial that had called on him to drop out of the race, charged that it “evidence of the bias that exists in the American media.”

The Sun Sentinel is so biased against Rubio, it endorsed him for US Senate in 2010.

Later in the debate, Rubio declared that the mainstream media was so biased in favor of Clinton that it was effectively functioning as her Super PAC.

The media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton has been so thoroughly negative, Nate Silver reported that from July 24 to September 15, she had just one day of positive coverage compared to 29 days of negative coverage.

Let’s look at the most aggressive attack at the media during the debate from Ted Cruz. Does the question justify the attack?

Is it just me or does he look mega constipated to you too?

QUINTANILLA: Senator Cruz. Congressional Republicans, Democrats and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown and calm financial markets that fear of — another Washington-created crisis is on the way.

Does your opposition to it show that you’re not the kind of problem-solver American voters want?

CRUZ: You know, let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. (APPLAUSE) This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions — “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?” “Ben Carson, can you do math?” “John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?” “Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?” “Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?”

How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?

Quintanilla asked about the federal budget, and Cruz’s response is to … demand substantive questions? The candidates were “reduced to [an] argument that America’s main business news network is part of a vast liberal conspiracy and that asking for mathematically plausible tax policies is a form of bias,” says Matt Yglesias.

Carson and Trump: A Tale of Two Anti-Intellectuals

“The problem for Republicans is that substantive questions about their policy proposals end up sounding like hostile attacks — but that’s because the policy proposals are ridiculous, not because the questions are actually unfair,” writes Ezra Klein at Vox.

Journalists themselves enable these attacks by trying to prove they’re “objective.” If they stay silent, they let these absurd attacks stand. But if they push back, they risk revealing themselves as humans with feelings and opinions. If journalists would just be honest about their opinions & biases, they’d take away this line of attack altogether – who attacks Chris Hayes for being progressive or Brit Hume for being conservative?

All of this raises a final question Republicans will be equally unhappy to face: If these guys can’t handle even these mild questions from moderators, how are they going to stand on stage in the general election debates next fall and go toe-to-toe with Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? These biggest of wanna-be bullies may look like wimps under fire.
Crossposted at Blue Mass Group 
Snarkarific art and captions were added by yours truly.