CBS hosted this week’s episode of “Reality GOP Presidential Debates” and apparently botched it.

The network decided not to allot a full 90 minutes for the debates on its network, and instead, offered the final 30 minutes online only.  The CBS’ site was so swamped with demand for bandwidth, that the feed was choppy and viewers couldn’t get on the site.  Meanwhile, this  SOUTH CAROLINA CBS debate ended up being accidentally bounced off of four South Carolina CBS affiliate stations, meaning the folks in South Carolina didn’t even get a chance to view the entire debate.

Even more interesting,  several candidates were unhappy about the amount of questions and airtime they received.  Jon Huntsman with barely 1% of the vote in any national poll and Rick Santorum were constant complainers about “being out in the cold.”  However Politico.com reports that the Bachmann campaign actually released e-mails which showed that CBS had decided in advance to direct little or no attention to the Congresswoman during the debate!

“Rep. Michele Bachmann produced a pre-debate email from newly minted CBS political director John Dickerson, mistakenly sent to a Bachmann staffer indicating that Bachmann is “nearly off the charts,” “not going to be getting many questions,” and probably wouldn’t be even be worth inviting to a post-debate webcast. “Bachmann is at 4 percent in the polls and has been for a while. Other candidates aren’t,” Dickerson responded. “I sent an email based on that,” said CBS political director John Dickerson.

THAT might be a lawsuit.  Deliberately disadvantaging one candidate over another?  Ron Paul’s campaign had much the same complaint.

Saturday night, CBS staged the first major GOP debate to appear on the traditional networks and the candidates welcomed the opportunity to have been introduced to the CBS Saturday night audience.  Scott Pelley’s questioning was strong.  Pelley held candidates accountable when they took off on campaign speeches instead of addressing the actual questions.  It was deathly awkward however, when Pelley lost track of time, or someone at CBS did so.  All of a sudden the debate was brought to a halt, “We’re out of time.” said Pelley.  Without any fanfare or closing…CBS shut down the entire production.

Still, for one solid hour, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney commanded the stage with stiletto sharp criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of events in Libya, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The sheer experience of the three Republican candidates most experienced in foreign affairs, shed light on how little experience Americans see in Barack Obama.

If you didn’t get to watch the debate, here’s a brief clip.  More available on Kitchen Cabinet Television on this webpage.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388046n&tag=pop;videos

There are more clips on Kitchen Cabinet TV, or at CBS.com.

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Filed under: Economy, Featured, Inside The KC, Politics by Sonja Eddings Brown, Nov 13, 2011