Bill O’Reilly Clashes With Krauthammer Over Outdated, ‘Waste Of Time’ Debate System

On his show Tuesday night, Bill O’Reilly revisited his criticism of the presidential debate. Replaying his comments on CBS — wherein he argued he didn’t learn a single thing from watching the candidates — O’Reilly debated the issue with Charles Krauthammer. Disagreeing with O’Reilly, Krauthammer said it’s the moderator’s job to get out of the way.

Taking a look back at President Barack Obama‘s and Mitt Romney‘s debate demeanor, O’Reilly posited that Romney may have been more subdued in an effort to court women voters. On the other hand, he said, Obama seemed “peeved.”

Later in the segment, O’Reilly deemed the current debate system “out of date” and a “waste of time,” because all the candidates do is “spout talking points.” The moderator essentially sets “them up for propaganda purposes.” The remedy is to have the moderator ask more “sharply focused” questions.

Krauthammer disagreed, arguing that in the first debate, Jim Lehrer “got out of the way” and “we learned a lot.” The moderator’s role is not to “throw the ball at one of the teams and see if they’re going to catch it,” he said. That brought him to another point: There’s no “olympian objective moderator.” He or she will always have a thumb on the scale, intentional or not.

As O’Reilly pointed to Romney’s debate performance, questioning why he wasn’t more critical of the Libya issue, Krauthammer asserted Romney’s job isn’t to play journalist. His job is to get elected president. “I don’t think the governor even cared about it,” O’Reilly replied.

The purpose of a debate is not to right wrongs, Krauthammer asserted — to which O’Reilly replied, “But I want to vote for the person who will right the wrongs.”

Take a look, via Fox News: