(Revised: 7:53 AM EST 9/6)
Fox News did the following in order to try to hurt Ron Paul:
- Accompanied RP's talking with laughing in the background - wherever it was coming from it was loud and obvoius and they let it go on...
- Moderators mocked him in some instances (i.e. Wallace asks if RP would act according to the will of foreign enemies, rather than politely asking for him to clarify his position).
- After it is first reported that Ron Paul is dominating the text message poll, they display the results of a test that measures the knee-jerk reactions of a random (?) selection of people, and try to legitimize it by using it as evidence that Huckabee "won" their argument, and RP "lost".
- Hannity refused to accept the legitimacy of the text message poll results all night long.
- RP had minimal airtime, most of which was reserved for The Annointed 3™, although the second half wasn't as bad (probably by design, to get away with giving him nothing for the first half of the debate)
Despite all this, Ron Paul beat them all:
- Stayed patient throughout the debate, and despite having minimal time to speak, takes advantage of every moment with great answers.
- Recovers from Chris Wallace's direct accusation that RP would "follow the marching orders of Al Qaeda", counters that he would merely follow the Constitution, and still gets loud applause. (edit: and he lives up to his name, Dr. NO...)
- Hannity interviews him and asks a question based on factually inaccurate premise (mainly by omission of relevant facts) RP tells him plainly "your history is all screwed up", briefly goes into the late 90's saga when Clinton kicked out UN inspectors and proceeded with bombings, but realizes he is talking to an empty suit and gives his attention to Colmes, the more sane of the two Fox News employees. For the first time (that I've seen) an interviewee of Hannity properly deals with his ignorance and puts him in his place.
- Resoundingly wins the text message poll, scoring more than double the number of votes as his runner-up (Huckabee)...still, no credit is given
Attention neocons/neolibs/neonubs: you've been exposed as frauds, and your tactics are transparent. You WILL lose. American sovereignty and liberty WILL prevail.
That said, I think tonight will turn out to be a huge turning point for Ron Paul (as was the case with the last Faux News debate with the RP/Ghouliani confrontation). I don't want to get overconfident, but I feel good right now.
Fox clearly went after RP. I think they may have been trying to make him snap and look bad, and perhaps RP was aware of that. This is more proof that Fox totally blows and you can do your part by simply not watching it or going to their website.
The one saving grace of all this is that Ron Paul was honestly reported as the winner of the poll, which is all we needed for a little boost to help us out.
Tonight's final scorecard:
RP: 1
Fox: 0
The 3™: 0