Republican presidential candidates complained about the questions asked during last week's debate on CNBC. They've demanded that rules be changed for future debates.
Ben Carson blamed moderators for asking questions designed for the candidates to explain their positions. He called those "gotcha questions."
"We need a change of format," Carson said the day after the debate. "Debates are supposed to be to 'get to know the candidates,' what is behind them. What it has turned into is a gotcha."
Carson doesn't know the difference between a first date and a debate.
CNBC spokesman Brian Steel defended the moderators.
"People who want to be president of the United States should be able to answer tough questions," Steel said.
On Monday, President Barack Obama needled the GOP candidates for saying that he had shown weakness in negotiations with Russia and China. But, Obama said, the candidates then whined about questions from CNBC moderators John Harwood, Carl Quintanilla, and Becky Quick.
"Then it turns out they can't handle a bunch of CNBC moderators at the debate." Obama said. "Let me tell you, if you can't handle those guys, then I don't think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you."
Russia and China?
I wonder how Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, or Ben Carson would hold up to the scrutiny of Kathie Lee and Hoda on The Today Show.
Being president is a tough job. If you're running for president, you've got to answer tough questions. And yes, sometimes, you have to answer questions you don't want to answer.
If not, you should quit, as Jeb Bush threatened, and go do "really cool things," which, in the case of the GOP candidates, would involve heckling teachers, gays, immigrants, the sick, and the poor.
Democracies depend on the electorate to be informed. The electorate, in turn, depends on the news media to ask questions that reveal the candidates not as they want to be perceived, but as they are.
GOP candidates say we must censor the news media to protect us from a democracy.
Candidates included their demands about ground rules for the remaining debates, the respective campaigns told Fox News but none of the other networks.
What's included in the demands? Perhaps, fact-checkers must be banned from the debates. What's the point of making up things if the fact-checkers are going to correct them?
The candidates are negotiating about having the rest of the debates on Fox News, which the GOP has declared a "sanctuary city."
If this happens, candidates won't have mainstream journalists or the "liberal media" to blame for their dishonesty, cynicism, and demagoguery.
They'll have only themselves.