Just a reminder, actual Democrat operatives and White House personnel will never have their legitimacy and credibility challenged this way. They can interview Republicans and be treated as non-partisan journalists. But if you’ve ever worked for a conservative media outlet, you’re tainted.
The Democratic National Committee and the news organization Politico are locked in an argument over the ideological credentials of a proposed moderator for next month’s Democratic debate, sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Politico and PBS are scheduled to co-host the sixth Democratic primary debate on Dec. 19 in Los Angeles.
At the behest of its publisher, Robert Allbritton, Politico is pushing for Tim Alberta, the chief political correspondent for Politico Magazine, to join journalists from PBS Newshour at the moderators’ desk. The top PBS journalists under consideration are Judy Woodruff, Yamiche Alcindor and Amna Nawaz.
Politico’s decision to push for Alberta has rankled officials at the DNC, as well as some journalists at PBS and even Politico, the sources said. The reason: Alberta previously wrote for National Review, a conservative magazine, and has spent the bulk of his recent career chronicling the Republican Party.
Democratic Party officials say such a journalist is ill-suited to co-moderate a debate meant to better inform Democratic voters about their potential nominees.
Meanwhile Wolf Blitzer and John Harwood were eminently suited to inform Republican voters about their potential nominees.
And the DNC is quite happy to have Rachel Maddow, who spends all her time claiming that the Russians control everybody through secret antennas in their brains, moderate their debates.
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