Martha Raddatz, moderator for VP debate, had President Obama at her wedding
Facing challenges of bias from conservative sources, Martha Raddatz will be center stage in Thursday’s VP debate between Joe Biden and GOP hopeful Paul Ryan.
Now the Daily Caller reports that President Barack Obama attended Raddatz’s 1991 wedding to Julius Genachowski, a former Harvard Law School classmate of the president whom he appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission. The couple divorced in 1997.
ABC News is aggressively pushing back against the conservative website Daily Caller.
Martha Raddatz is known for her tough, fair reporting, which is why it was no surprise to her colleagues inside and outside ABC News that she was chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates for this assignment. Barack Obama was a law school classmate of Raddatz’s ex-husband Julius Genachowski at Harvard. At the time Barack Obama was a student and president of the Law Review. He attended their wedding over two decades ago along with nearly the entire Law Review, many of whom went onto successful careers including some in the Bush administration. Raddatz and Mr. Genachowski divorced in 1997 and both are now remarried.
Martha Raddatz and President George W. Bush exclusive ABC interview – screenshot from interview
“Ideally, we want debates without moderators altogether. The implicit idea is that this is an exchange between two candidates, and the moderator shouldn’t be the one to save one candidate or interrupt the flow of another,” John Podhoretz, the conservative columnist who initially criticized Lehrer’s passivity, told POLITICO. “But because of the criticism, [Raddatz] will feel like she needs to take a more active role so she doesn’t get beat up by the media.”
“Lehrer was actually a model for staying out of the way, and a model that should be emulated,” said Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist for Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “I profoundly disagree with the idea that the lesson from last week is Martha Raddatz needs to be all over the candidates. That’s not her job.”
“Martha has a no-nonsense approach to interviews, which means she’ll be a moderator who can’t be messed with,” Jon Karl, ABC’s senior political correspondent told POLITICO. “When you are talking to Martha, whether you’re a vice president or one of us, you feel like you’ve got to be straight. You have to engage and answer her because she can call bulls–t pretty effectively.”
