The Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes launched a pre-emptive pre-debate attack on ABC’s George Stephanolpulos, bashing his allegedly “pro-Democratic” record on debate analysis and complaining that “in eight out of the last nine general election presidential debates (every one since he joined ABC News in 1997), Stephanopoulos has gone on his network’s airwaves to claim victory for the Democratic candidate, all in the guise of offering impartial analysis.”
But Noyes offered no evidence that Stephanopoulos’ view of those debates deviated from general public — in fact, as we’ve pointed out, Stephanopoulos’ opinion of the outcome of the 2008 debates accurately reflected that of the American public as indicated by post-debate polling.
Nevertheless, the MRC was a bit flummoxed that Stephanopoulos is continuing to reflect public opinion. From an Oct. 4 NewsBusters post by the MRC’s Matthew Balan:
ABC’s George Stephanonopoulos carried a eight-out-of-nine record of declaring the Democratic presidential candidate the winner into Wednesday night’s Obama-Romney presidential debate. Surprisingly, the Clinton administration veteran affirmed that Mitt Romney scored points on President Obama: “I think Governor Romney definitely more crisp in his presentation tonight….he was able to be aggressive without being offensive.”
Again, post-debate polling found that the majority of Americans thought Romney won the debate. It’s not surprising at all — the MRC simply chooses to play partisan politics by blaming everything it doesn’t like on “liberal bias,” even when the facts prove them wrong.