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Norris2k on 30 September 2016
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Final-Fan said:

Stop-and-frisk as practiced in NYC was ruled unconstitutional "because it largely singled out black and Hispanic [young men]", just like he said.  Blanket statements of "constitutional" and "unconstitutional" are equally wrong, and Trump only came off worse there because he was the one saying that the practice that was found unconstitutional was a great thing.  Sometimes the moderator is biased, but sometimes "reality has a bias".  Trump was pretty much calling for an unconstitutional practice to be implemented nationwide, and as a moderator you can't just let that stand.  He didn't say "You were wrong" implying that Clinton was right; he just said "it was ruled unconstitutional because blah" and Trump cut him off before he could explain what he wanted to follow up on specifically. 

And I just want to note that his other question wasn't about Trump's support of the Iraq war specifically.  He asserted that it was a fact that he had supported the war before it began, and asked why his judgment on that issue was so much better than Clinton who also supported giving Bush the authority to go to war.  The fight over whether he had in fact supported it arose naturally out of that disagreement on a point of fact. 

(And, it seems, there is little evidence on the public record of what his opinion was before the war began.  What little evidence exists shows weak support of it, while he claims that after that interview but before the war he became strongly against it in private conversations.  It didn't take him very long to turn against the war, but I don't see evidence in his public comments to support the idea that he was strongly against it and had been for a while already.  It looked more to me like he gradually soured on the war as it bogged down, similar to the rest of America, but maybe the transition was faster than average for him.) 

I think that when he asked Clinton, "Do you think police are implicitly biased against black people?", that was just as tough a question as asking Trump about his judgment versus Clinton's in supporting going into Iraq (which he seemed to assert they both did).  Not a very hardball question IMO compared to some others, but Trump just exploded about it and Clinton was better able to deal with her question. 

3 to 0 or 4 to 1.  One-sided, still, yes.  I do think Trump is a bigger target considering all the crap that's come out of his mouth (all but one of those questions were on things he's said), but still one-sided.  He could have asked Clinton about the basket of deplorables.  But not 5 to 0. 

I agree about the question about police bias. I didn't think about it when I saw it. She managed it very well, so at this time it did not appear as the tough question it is, considering her position and voter targets. So I'd agree on 4 to 1 !

Clearly, Trump before Irak didn't have a strong stand against it publicly (varying from mildly for to mildly against), be it for PR reason, or for not having really a stable opinion and then he claims he was strongly against in private, which is impossible to verify. But in this case, "you supported the war in Irak" as an opening sentence is more a troll than a unfalsifiable fact from a moderator. It's like if the question to Clinton started with "You did not show any support for the police in Charlotte.". You have to go against the question itself, which takes time and is harder, especially if you are interrupted. If he want to go with this style, if he want to push the candidate, I'm OK, just it has to be fair.

About Trump being a bigger target, I totally disagree. Benghazzi, the private server (having it, having it hacked, lying about it, and getting immunity for 5 persons of her team), DNC/Bernie scandal, the Clinton foundation, the multiple wars she supported (Irak, Syria, Libya), her 45 millions fortune built as a public servant, the attempt to cover Bill's affairs, etc... it's huge, really, you could talk about it 11 hours straight (and some did). I believe Trump is not even close to that, but strictly about the debate, Clinton is at the very least as big as a target.