CNN Email Lists Talking Points To Defend Candy Crowley

Candy Crowley, long-time CNN political correspondent and the first female moderator of a Presidential Debate since 1992, handled her first time at bat at the second Presidential Debate for 2012 very well.

The problem is that Mitt Romney stepped into a deep do-do of a shit pile, when he tried to say that President Obama didn’t use the term “terror” in his post Bengazi-attack Rose Garden speech. Here’s what happened, courtesy of the Zennie62 video:

Now, TMZ.com reports that CNN’s issued an internal email to staff courtesy of Mark Whitaker. Here’s the text:

“Let’s start with a big round of applause for Candy Crowley for a superb job under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. She and her team had to select and sequence questions in a matter of hours, and then she had to deal with the tricky format, the nervous questioners, the aggressive debaters, all while shutting out the pre-debate attempts to spin and intimidate her. She pulled it off masterfully.

The reviews on Candy’s performance have been overwhelmingly positive but Romney supporters are going after her on two points, no doubt because their man did not have as good a night as he had in Denver. On the legitimacy of Candy fact-checking Romney on Obama’s Rose Garden statement, it should be stressed that she was just stating a point of fact: Obama did talk about an act (or acts) of terror, no matter what you think he meant by that at the time. On why Obama got more time to speak, it should be noted that Candy and her commission producers tried to keep it even but that Obama went on longer largely because he speaks more slowly. We’re going to do a word count to see whether, as in Denver, Romney actually got more words in even if he talked for a shorter period of time.”

Attacking Candy, just the second woman to moderate a debate, is a dangerous activity for Mitt Romney and will help to cost him the women vote.

Stay tuned.