Noel Sheppard
Newsbusters ^[1]
Oct 17, 2012

Conceivably the biggest moment in Tuesday’s presidential debate was when moderator Candy Crowley injected herself ^[2] into the discussion siding with Barack Obama on remarks he claimed he made in the Rose Garden following the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Long-time Democrat campaign strategist Joe Trippi said on Fox News shortly after the debate’s conclusion that this looked like “the ref just threw the flag” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

JOE TRIPPI: I do think you’ll see, or should see the Romney people push back on the Libya thing because I think Candy Crowley, when the moderator said, admonished him to read the transcript, that kind of pushes, makes it look like, well, that there’s a ref, and the ref just threw the flag. So I think that’s going to help the President.

It certainly helped the President because the moderator actually took sides.

Politico’s Dylan Byers posted ^[3] a video and a transcript of the exchange:

Full article here ^[1]