David Westin

David Westin

01/08/08 - GodVoter.org calls for ABC, Fox News presidents ouster

GodVoter.org calls on David Westin, President of ABC News and Roger Ailes, Chairman of Fox News to apologize to the nation’s voters for their networks’ attempts to influence the 2008 presidential race.

To justify its decision to exclude certain candidates from this weekend’s debate, David Westin's ABC News stated that candidates like Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter failed to meet its criteria for participation, while Roger Ailes' Fox News cited the lack of room in its cramped debate venue.

Are we to believe that David Westin's ABC News didn’t know exactly which candidates would be affected while crafting its criteria just days earlier? And how much more space would another candidate or two have cost Fox News, owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch's News Corp?

Limiting participation in presidential debates is warranted after the voters have become acquainted with the candidates. This weekend’s debates took place on the 5th and the 6th days of the election year. Many voters still don’t even know some of the candidates’ names, let alone their records and platforms.

And the error of the exclusions was evident. For example, foreign policy neophytes like Obama and Romney, neither of whom have military experience, expounding on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the nuclear threat without Duncan Hunter, the former army ranger serving his 26th year on the House Armed Services Committee, was akin to college freshmen trying to impress during an oral exam without the professor.

Ever since Kennedy debated Nixon in black and white in 1960, television networks have been gaining and wielding influence over presidential races. But it has gone too far. If David Westin and Roger Ailes, the former media consultant for Rudy Giuliani, refuse to apologize to the voters and to the affected candidates, GodVoter.org calls on Disney and News Corp to replace them.