Following Wednesday's NBC News/Politico Republican presidential debate which will last one hour and forty five minutes, MSNBC will devote more time, two hours and fifteen minutes, to a group of ten left-wing commentators – with a mere two non-liberals mixed in – to analyzing what the Republicans and conservatives said.
The far from fair and balanced line-up of those with a history of hostility toward conservatives will showcase MSNBC's prime time anchors: Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O'Donnell and Al Sharpton. Plus, Eugene Robinson, Howard Fineman, Michael Eric Dyson, Melissa Harris-Perry of the far-left The Nation and Huffington Post's Alex Wagner.
Balancing those ten liberals: former RNC Chairman Michael Steele and GOP Strategist Steve Schmidt.
Why in the world did the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation [1] agree to allow their facilities to be used by a 'news' organization devoted to undermining and ridiculing the values Ronald Reagan espoused?
And so much for any pretense that having NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and the Politico's John Harris serving as moderators of the debate – replacing the embarrassing left-wing performance of Chris Matthews who moderated a debate at the Reagan library in 2007 – would mean any kind of a journalistically professional presentation.
From the MSNBC announcement posted by TV Newser [2] late Thursday afternoon:
MSNBC will broadcast the GOP Presidential Candidates debate at the Reagan Library from 8-9:45p ET on Wednesday, September 7. Live analysis will follow the conclusion of the debate, beginning at 9:45p ET and continuing until midnight ET. Debate analysis will come from MSNBC's primetime anchors including Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews from Reagan Library, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O'Donnell and Rev. Al Sharpton. MSNBC's political analysts will also weigh in, including Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, Fmr. RNC Chairman Michael Steele, The Nation's Melissa Harris-Perry, Huffington Post's Howard Fineman and Alex Wagner, Georgetown University's Michael Eric Dyson and GOP Strategist Steve Schmidt. MSNBC will re-air the debate in its entirety as well as the post-debate analysis at midnight ET.