Russert is looking mighty good compared with who's left.

I just sent this to the Meet The Press link you provided:

When I heard Mr. Brokaw end the segment on Meet The Press with a WSJ/MSNBC poll that he said favored McCain as CIC "in the interest of fairness," I was left staring at the tv wondering why he did it. IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS? After a perfectly good discussion on issues?

Now I find out that it wasn't even TRUE! The poll had Obama up by 2 points, so now I have gone from incredulous to furious.

Oh. And worried. Tom Brokaw cannot moderate a debate fairly in my opinion. He is so clearly a McCain backer that he can't even hide it when he hosts Meet The Press.

I hope that his bosses (is there anyone he is accountable to?) will let him know that people are not stupid and we are expecting a moderator who can actually be fair -- not say he is fair as he puts in a plug for one candidate.

Mr Leher gave us the best debate moderation I have ever seen; good questions, good followup and good control over the event.

Tough act to follow, Tom. Why not give it a try, though?

It wouldn't be all bad if Brokaw comes off as a totally transparent "Homer" for McCain. If he runs the risk increasing sympathy for Obama. Everybody gets mad when the ref becomes part of the game. Ifill in not insisting Palin stay on point gave Palin a lot of rope to hang herself. Palin took it, even tieing the not herself, and was her own executioner. Just as Biden let Palin's obvious errors slide, so did Ifill.

Ifill came off as fair. Biden display gravitas. Palin appeared inconsequential.

I'm not very worried about Brokaw. I think he is smart enough not to put his career and legacy in McCain's hands.

Sent my coment off, thanks for the lik=nk. My comment as sent is below.

I am getting increasingly concerned about Mr. Brokaw's ability to fairly moderate a Presidential debate. At the end of the Sept. 28 MTP segment between David Axelrod and Steve Schmidt, Mr. Brokaw stated: "In fairness to everybody here, I'm just going to end on one note, and that is that we continue to poll on who's best equipped to be commander in chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll." Mr. Brokaw neglected to disclose that these numbers were from a three-week old poll, NOT the latest poll. Given that there have been more recent NBC/WSJ polls yielding data suggesting that Sen. Obama has closed that gap, tossing in this outdated tidbit shows that Mr. Brokaw is not sufficiently able to cage his personal bias. I do not object to a journalist having a bias, they are Americans with a free right to choose. However, in accepting the role of a presenter and even more as a moderator, I do expect and demand that such a journalist keep the bias OUT of the political process. Parting shots are cheap, unfair and in this case, deliberately misleading. If Mr. Brokaw cannot restrain his favoritism, he must step aside for someone who can. Jim Lehrer was certainly able to do so and likewise Gwen Ifill--even under the sham-rules imposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates for the Vice-Presidential (un)Debate.

Please consider replacing Mr. Brokaw, or at least strongly impress upon him that American voters deserve better from him than he delivered on Sunday.

BTW, the numbers Brokaw quoted were "technically" from the latest NBC/WSJ poll to specifically ask: "Who do you think would be better when it comes to being a good commander-in-chief?" The poll was taken Sept 6-8. However I still think it was journalistically and intellectually dishonest to include that pol result without including more recent data. This is dishonesty by way of omission.

Also, after the VP debate, Brokaw was clearly spinning for Palin. His parting words were, "I'll bet the Democrats are glad that there's only one VP debate." Given that all the polls showed that Biden cleaned Palin's clock, I'm sure the Dems would love another matchup. But I don't think Brokaw's bias will show in the debate, and Obama rules on domestic issues anyway. McCain is wedded to Bush's terrible policies, esp. his tax cuts, and so he'll be on defense most of time. Brokaw himself comes accross as old and curmudgeonly, so having him as a booster isn't exactly a plus.

What is everyone's opinion of Bob Schiefer? He is the moderator for the third presidential debate. I guess it's too late now to do anything about any of this. I do feel that Obama is totally aware of the MSM bias and will deal with it very "creatively".

I think you are right about Lehrer. I will now have to send a letter to CBS. MoveOn seems to have shirked their responsibilities on this issue except for the link from their web site, which only a few of us even know about. Someone will have to watch Schiefer tomorrow (Oct 5) I will be canvassing for Barack in Milwaukee. But, I do think we are stuck with both Brokaw and Schiefer.

I sent a message off to them too. Sorry I forgot to save it and cannot copy it here, but the point of my email is what you guys posted here.

We really need a petition -- we can put pressure on him and tie his hand. Whatever Brokaw's real motive is, a false sense of parity and balance can be much worse than blatant bias ala FOX, as its effect is insidious under the guise of objective journalism.

Holy crap. You people CANNOT be serious. Some of you have waaaaay too much time on your hands. Anyone here know about the last moderator writing a pro-Obama BOOK and releasing INAUGURATION DAY??? And did anyone here care? Please people. You are seriously paranoid. Alternative universe-level paranoid.

The mainstream media is over 90% democrat both in donations and by political affiliation. I can't believe you people are actually worried about republican bias in the media. Mind-blowing.

Tom Brokaw has been leaning GOP for months now. I've held this belief for some time now. Since Obama won the Democratic nomination, Brokaw has been negative towards him. He still calls Obama's speech at Invesco Field a "spectacle." It pains this man to say anything positive about Obama.

I think it has much less to do with the candidates -- either of them -- and more to do with the NBC/MSNBC image as dropping out of the steady mainstream 'real journalism' and becoming a 'counterweight' to or opposing version of Faux News. I love Matthews, Olberman and Maddow's shows and tape them daily but admit that part of the liking is that they reflect my own biases. They aren't trying to be even-handed (although Matthews will poke in any direction to make trouble). Even my favorite, Rachel Maddow, went to great lengths to list all of Palin's factual innacuracies without acknowledging that Biden had some also (not a thing of horror when they are jumping around from subject to subject and coming up with stuff from memory). -------- It was a mistake, I think, to put Matthews and Olberman in "reporter" spots for the conventions - a fact that became painfully obvious when they were practically forcing words through gritted teeth to say something non-controversial after Palin's speech. (I was glad I was under no such restraint) ----- So Brokaw especially (more from the olden days when *no one* knew the political leanings of news reporters) is probably trying hard, maybe too hard, to right the balance and keep "NBC" from becoming a shorthand for a certain bias as "Fox News" has become. And that's a valid concern. ---- I doubt very much that he's pro-McCain or that in a debate which he can pretty much control himself, he will favor one side over the other.

I would really like to know, however, how they are going about making sure the town hall questions are pertinent and if there will be any knowledge on the part of Brokaw of question a particular person will be asking. That really should be spelled out beforehand. It could be 'blind' (where he doesn't know) and just by coincidence he calls on three people in a row with good-for-McCain or good-for-Obama questions, giving the impression that he's being biased.