in her own words she admits it. go to CrooksandLiars for the video.

There's a whole lot of rationalizing going on in media circles over the laughable and admitted stump-speech-disguised-as-a-Vi­ce-Presidential-debate last week. Moderator Gwen Ifill apparently thinks that if the candidates themselves weren't worried about staying on topic or engaging one another, it wasn't her job to make them do so.

The understanding was that we were going to have a debate. And one of the interesting things about debates, that people forget -- especially with this one, there was so much obsession about Sarah Palin -- is that there are two people on stage. And their job – you know this, you’re doing this Tuesday night – are to debate each other. The moderator’s job is to control their debate. If they have decided, as Joe Biden decided, that he was going to debate John McCain and she decided she was going to give a stump speech to the American people, there’s very little a moderator can do, other than say, “No, no, no, listen, I ask the questions! Please, please answer!” So I guess I knew going in that they all had their goals for that debate.

I was taken, going in, it can now be said, by how many of the questions that people volunteered to me were all about her. There was 99%, I would say, was all about her. 99% of the analysis afterward were about her. It was as if Joe Biden wasn’t part of this deal. And if she wasn’t challenged on the things she said that were not completely correct, or if she wasn’t challenged on changing the subject and answering the questions, by her competitor, I had another job to do at the table.

By her own admission, Ifill recognizes that it's the moderator's job to control the debate--and says that Palin "blew her off"--but since neither of the candidates called out the other for not following the debate rules, she has "another job at the table". Um, huh?

Why bother having a moderator at that point, Ifill? What other job was monopolizing your time?

I don't agree

these are her words. she didn't moderate.

"The moderator’s job is to control their debate. If they have decided, as Joe Biden decided, that he was going to debate John McCain and she decided she was going to give a stump speech to the American people, there’s very little a moderator can do, other than say, “No, no, no, listen, I ask the questions! Please, please answer!” So I guess I knew going in that they all had their goals for that debate."

It is fine to criticize Gwen Ifill if you want to. However, I am not sure that anyone else - Jim Lehrer, Bob Schieffer, Tom Brokaw, Charlie Gibson, etc., etc. would have done any better. I think that it was a pretty sorry situation. I am glad that I wasn't the moderator.

If she had done it any other way, the right would have squealed even louder about how she defeated the press. Gwen was caught between a rock and a hard place. Kudo's to her.

Besides, real debates usually start out with a premise and the moderator is only there to keep time and keep track of how many points each debater hits and how well.

these things should be called conversations.

The other side has got an old fogey and a sexy cuckold with a squeaky voice who every knows is empty headed....It's like trying to moderate Einstein and an ameoba...Everybody knows that Palin is an ignoramus and it wouldn't do to try to get her to answer anything....

...One CNN pundit had it right:"Just let her shoot herself down!"

The fact that Palin could even be considered for the position is an endictment of our political system....Around the world,people are shaking their heads!