CNN Managing Editor Mark Whitaker defended the network's political correspondent Candy Crowley, who has been criticized for supposedly defending President Obama during the second presidential debate when Governor Romney questioned Obama's speech after the Benghazi attacks.
In a letter to all CNN staff, Whitaker said, "The reviews on Candy's performance have been overwhelmingly positive but Romney supporters are going after her on two points, no doubt because their man did not have as good a night as he had in Denver. On the legitimacy of Candy fact-checking Romney on Obama's Rose Garden statement, it should be stressed that she was just stating a point of fact: Obama did talk about an act (or acts) of terror, no matter what you think he meant by that at the time. On why Obama got more time to speak, it should be noted that Candy and her commission producers tried to keep it even but that Obama went on longer largely because he speaks more slowly. We're going to do a word count to see whether, as in Denver, Romney actually got more words in even if he talked for a shorter period of time," as reported by TMZ, who the first to break the story.
During the debates at Hofstra University, on a question related to the embassy attacks in Benghazi, Obama iterated that he called the attacks "acts of terror" in a speech right after the incident. Romney pointed questioned Obama "Did you really call it a terrorist attack, did you?" After Romney's confrontation things got heated when Obama responded "read the transcript."
Crowley interjected correcting Romney, but then also confirmed that Romney was correct in stating that it did take the administration two weeks to accurately describe the motive behind the incident.
To Crowley's defense she did correct both candidates, after telling Romney that Obama did in fact use the phrase the "act of terror" during his speech at the Rose Garden immediately after the attacks in Benghazi, which claimed the lives of four Americans including the U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, Crowley also said that Romney was correct to point out that it did take the administration two weeks to confirm that it was an act of terrorist and not spontaneous violence.
On ABC's "The View" Crowley says that her intention was not to side with a particular candidate, but to keep the pace moving and preventing the debate from wandering off point. Crowley told the ladies on the show that she just "did not want to get to 'so is your mother' kinda thing," as reported on ABC News.
When asked what her response was to all the media criticism she was getting for her comments she said I'd ask them (media) to listen to what I said after the comments."
The CNN political correspondent remains unapologetic about her comments saying "People are going to look at this through the prism they look at it through."
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