#debates:

New Post has been published on http://www.beetrends.com/an-open-letter-to-the-commission-on-presidential-debates-bring-on-instant-replay/

An open letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates: Bring on instant replay!

Dear Mr. Frank Fahrenkopf and Mr. Michael McCurry:

As you gentlemen undoubtedly know, Week 1 of the 2016 NFL season concluded with its usual and unusual fanfare: roaring crowds, jammed parking lots, overserved fans, heartfelt renditions of “The Star Spangled Banner” (with some players kneeling, others raising their fists and an entire team locking arms) and several exciting games decided by just one point.

While each contest this past weekend had its own series of questionable plays, viewers were at least assured a baseline sense of accuracy and “truth” in the outcome. That’s because there’s a system in place to examine and confirm every score, turnover or controversial play. The NFL has tweaked its instant-replay rules over the years in an effort to offer a sense of transparency to fans, casual fantasy players and big-time bettors following the action in Vegas. Although there probably always will be some plays that will generate partisan debate, the NFL has basically brought “fact-checking” into its games through the use of instant replay.

Doesn’t the most important contest in the country deserve the same treatment? After working in Silicon Valley for the past decade, I have learned that digital technology can take democracy to a new level. Today facts, videos, photos and public documents are all readily available online for anyone to see. When presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appeared on last week’s prime-time forum with NBC’s Matt Lauer, America’s collective BS detector started to sound — loudly.

Almost immediately, the electorate and the media began to question whether the moderators of the upcoming presidential debates can hold the candidates to a basic standard of truth.

Therefore, since the future of our country and the world is at stake, I propose that the Commission on Presidential Debates change course and reform a clearly antiquated debate system and bring it into the information age. Specifically, I urge you, as heads of the commission, to leverage the technology built in this country by immigrants and the children of immigrants to perform real-time fact-checking on stage during the debates.

Here is my proposal: During the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, the moderator, NBC’s Lester Holt, should go about his business as usual, sitting in front of the candidates and posing questions — but be joined by a team of fact-checkers from Factcheck.org, a project run by the nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center (itself part of Donald Trump’s alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania). Just like in professional football games, each side would be given two challenges. The candidates could then use them over the course of the 90-minute debate. If one heard a “lie” during the other’s response, he or she could press a button that would illuminate a red light at his or her podium. Once the other side finished its response, the moderator would allow the candidate who “threw the red flag” to explicitly challenge the statement at issue.

Members of the fact-check team would then go to work to determine the veracity of the answer and relay their findings to the moderator. If the challenger were to be correct, then he or she would still have two challenges and the candidate whose statement was found false, well, would be shown to be a liar in front of the whole country. If, however, the challenge were to be unfounded — and the speaker’s statement is determined to be factually sound — then the challenger would lose one of his or her challenges and be shown as ill-informed.

The candidates wouldn’t be the only ones who could issue a challenge, however. Just like how the NFL automatically reviews plays during the last two minutes of a half, the debate moderator and the fact-checkers could weigh in on any possible mistruths after the closing remarks and make the call without a candidate’s being able to respond.

So careful what you say, Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton, because under this scenario you would not have the final word — the truth would.

Although it’s no game-show gimmick, this new format would make for riveting political theater and has the potential to bring in more than the 100 million expected debate viewers. Most important, though, those who tune in could expect to hear verifiable facts, even if only on a few nights.

I have bounced this idea off a few colleagues and business leaders and their response has been the same: They love it but it would take way too long! This seemed to be a fair point, so I decided to test it. I took the subject of immigration and the proposed Great Wall of Mexico. I wanted to see what each candidate’s record or position was on securing America’s southern border.

Trump has changed and restated his proposed policy of deporting 11 million immigrants in dizzying fashion. During his Fox News discussion with Sean Hannity, his proposal to grant amnesty came back on the table. Yet during his speech days later in Phoenix, it wasn’t.

Sourcing these facts required mere microseconds in a YouTube search. It took me 0.75 seconds to find on Google what Secretary Clinton had said during her acceptance speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention: “We will not build a wall.” A second search that took another 0.54 seconds, however, turned up a Senate roll call vote on Sept. 29, 2006, when then-Senator Clinton voted for what is known as the Secure Fence Act of 2006. This bill authorized the allocation of $7 billion to build and fortify a 700-mile fence across all of Arizona’s border with Mexico, as well parts of those of California, New Mexico and Texas. So basically, this fact-check took about 1.2 seconds of searching and a few more seconds of reading.

Given what happened last week at the Commander in Chief Forum hosted by NBC News (my former employer) in front of a live audience of veterans and families of veterans, I decided to focus on the much-scrutinized topics of email servers and Iraq. Secretary Clinton’s assertion that she took her use of the private email server “very seriously” and “did exactly what I should have done” stood somewhat in contradiction to what FBI Director Comey said on July 5, when he clearly observed about Clinton’s staffers, “There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” In other words, if challenged, Secretary Clinton would have lost this round of fact-checking.

Trump has claimed that he was against the 2003 invasion of Iraq from the very beginning. In this case, I consulted Factcheck.org, which described a Sept. 11, 2002 appearance by Trump on “The Howard Stern Show” when the host asked Trump if he supported a war with Iraq, and Trump responded, “Yeah, I guess so.” The YouTube video of this segment is like the replay that clearly shows that the ball came out before the knee touched the ground — it doesn’t lie.

Working in media and technology, as we do here at Salon, I fully recognize that this concept, like any innovative idea, needs beta-testing. A director at Factcheck.org told me, “Holding candidates accountable for making false statements is an admirable goal, but live fact-checking is a dangerous thing to do.” He cautioned, “I would be wary of it and, in general, use it only if the statement in dispute already has been thoroughly researched and proven clearly false.”

That’s a high bar, of course, and perhaps that’s just as well. The 2016 debates are only a couple of weeks away and we have some more work to do to get this concept ready for primetime. But an interim step could be taken immediately. Both CNN and MSNBC have begun using a fact-check crawl at the bottom of the screen during their coverage of speeches.

This is a great first step, one we would like to see the commission mandate for all the networks carrying the debates, so that the viewing public could see the record set straight in real time. I am not naive enough to think that these actions would stop the deceptive remarks, but it would certainly make the candidates think twice about it — for once.

Best regards,

Jordan Hoffner,

CEO of Salon Media

Republican debates: What I want to hear about our foreign policy challenges

Republican presidential candidates gather on stage before a forum Monday, Aug. 3, 2015, in Manchester, N.H. From left: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Scott Walker. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)

The great thing about debates is that candidates can’t get away with the canned, bland lines of their stump speeches. They’re asked questions – and follow-up questions – about the specifics of their policies. Since people care more about issues close to home – taxes, jobs, health care, immigration, education and the range of social issues – foreign policy questions usually get short shrift. But this election promises to be, at least in part, about national security.

Most Americans – Republicans, Democrats and independents – think we’re on the wrong track. A majority believe we’re a superpower in decline, and we don’t like it. We want to restore America’s leadership role in the world, but we don’t know how to do it. Most Republican and independent voters, and even some Democrats, think it’s President Obama’s fault. We’re looking for a strong leader to reverse the trend, the way Ronald Reagan did in the ‘80s after Jimmy Carter’s disastrous presidency.

Yet most of the Republican candidates are governors or businessmen, with scant foreign policy experience. Few have waded into the perilous waters of national security with anything more than sound bites. When they have, they’ve criticized every one of Obama’s policies, roundly and soundly. They’ve also spoken up, loudly and proudly, to say that they, like Reagan, believe in Peace through Strength.

OK, so far so good. After all, who’s against peace? Who wants a weak America? Since every Republican voter loves Reagan, whose stature grows larger with every passing year, invoking him at every opportunity makes sense.

But Reagan filled in the details. As a member of his administration I saw firsthand how his policy to win the Cold War was a comprehensive and detailed plan to stress the Soviet economy to the breaking point while at the same time building up America’s defenses, economy and allies, and also giving covert aid to reformers behind the Iron Curtain.

What are you going to do to defeat Islamic extremism, prevent Russian revanche and check Chinese expansionism … and create jobs, revive the economy and restore the American dream?

With one or two exceptions, the 17 Republican candidates have not articulated comprehensive national security policies or taken decisive stands on the major issues. They’ve all said what they’re against, but few have said what they’re for. They’ve read speeches scripted by foreign policy aides, but you don’t get a sense that they’ve personally mastered the issues.

Here is what I’ll be looking for in Thursday’s afternoon and evening debates on FOX News.

IRAN – Every one of the Republican candidates has condemned the Obama/Kerry deal, but few have said what they would do instead, other than cancel it the minute they take the oath of office.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, perhaps in a joint U.S.-Israeli attack, and destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But surely there are hazards in this approach, since Iran would retaliate. Instead of emasculating Iran’s regime, such an attack could risk pushing the Iranian people – many of whom are now pro-American and fed up with the hard-line regime – to rally around their flag and stand with the mullahs. It might buy some time, but it could also push Iran to accelerate building a bomb.

Would the other candidates reimpose sanctions, despite the fact that the sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table but not to the brink of economic collapse? Even if we reimpose sanctions, other nations are so eager to do business with Iran that they won’t. Would the candidates use high technology to tear down Iran’s cyberwall and encourage anti-regime reformers to access social media and the Worldwide Web? Would they covertly or even overtly encourage regime change along the lines of the Arab Spring? Would they initiate cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear and conventional weapons programs? Would they support Iran’s adversaries in the region?

The reality, deal or no deal, is that Iran is getting nuclear weapons sooner or later, probably before the next president finishes his (or her) term in office. If the next president can’t prevent Iran from getting the bomb, how will he deal with it?

ARAB ALLIES – We used to have Arab allies in the Middle East. But the Iran deal has given them second thoughts as they contemplate building or buying nuclear weapons of their own. How would the candidates prevent a nuclear arms race as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and the Gulf states try to match Iran’s program? Or would they help these countries develop nuclear programs to counter Iran’s?

ISRAEL – U.S.-Israeli relations are at an all-time low now and are likely to get even worse before Obama leaves office. If Iran’s supreme leader is true to his word, an Iranian attack or an Iranian proxy attack on Israel is a real possibility within the next few years. Would the candidates extend America’s nuclear umbrella to cover Israel?

ISLAMIC STATE – Obama’s promise to “degrade and destroy” ISIS has failed. His plan to train and arm a 3,000-man rebel Syrian army has so far resulted in a mere 60 recruits – some of whom were killed or captured last week. If a 30,000-man Iraqi army failed to stop ISIS in 2014, it’s hard to see how a handful of Syrian rebels will succeed in 2015.

Dreams of a joint Sunni Arab force to fight ISIS have also failed to materialize.

The fight against ISIS is now like a McDonald’s menu – everybody gets to order his own combo-meal. Every order comes with fries, like everybody’s fighting ISIS. But that’s where the similarity ends. The Turks are fighting ISIS along with us, but they’re also fighting our allies, the Kurds. Turkey wants Assad out of Syria, but Iran wants him in. The U.S.-trained Syrian rebels are fighting ISIS, but they really want to fight Assad, and we won’t let them. Except in southern Syria, where the CIA is supposedly training other rebels who are fighting Assad. Iran is fighting ISIS, but only with Shiite ground forces. Egypt is fighting ISIS, but only in the Sinai, and it worries that ISIS will control Syria if Assad falls. In other words, the fight against ISIS is a mess. As a general rule, if a policy is too complicated to explain, it’s probably too complicated to succeed.

What would the candidates do to stop ISIS? Send in U.S. ground forces? If so, how many? Who would they fight with and who would they fight against?

ISIS IN AMERICA – ISIS is really two threats: one to our allies and interests in the Middle East, and one to the U.S. homeland. Even if we managed to destroy ISIS in the Middle East, as long as a handful of social media-savvy jihadists remained, they could still recruit and launch lone-wolf attacks on Americans at home. What would the candidates do about the online ISIS threat? Where do they draw the line between privacy and security?

PUTIN – The Russian president is strutting across borders into Ukraine, rattling sabers on NATO borders and threatening nuclear war. Would the candidates try to roll him back in Ukraine? If so, how? Would they arm Ukraine? Would they, as a last resort, commit U.S. forces to that fight? Would they be willing to fight Russia if Putin pushes into NATO territory?

CHINA – China is stealing our weapon designs and pouring enormous resources into its military. It’s also building artificial islands in the South China Sea and claiming the large waterway between the mainland and the islands as an internal Chinese lake. It’s arming those islands with naval ports and airstrips. It’s also hacking into U.S. government and industrial computer systems and stealing classified information on millions of Americans.

So far the Obama administration has asked China, more or less politely, to stop. As Secretary Clinton has said, “You don’t pick a fight with your banker.” Predictably, the Chinese have only intensified their actions and escalated their rhetoric. What would the candidates do to stop Chinese expansion, data theft and industrial espionage? What if China doesn’t back down?

Peace Through Strength went far beyond rebuilding America’s military. President Reagan used all elements of our national power – economic, political, diplomatic and military – to turn America from a nation in decline to the world’s sole superpower. He set in motion the policies that ultimately defeated Communism and ended the Cold War – without firing a shot.

What are you going to do to defeat Islamic extremism, prevent Russian revanche and check Chinese expansionism … and create jobs, revive the economy and restore the American dream? It sounds like an impossibly tall order, but then again, no one said being president was going to be any easier than running for president. That’s why I’ve got my popcorn ready and my pizza deliveryman on speed dial. I can’t wait for Thursday’s debates.

Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com’s "DefCon 3." She served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations