There is a real tendency to just dismiss all things Fox News, and in many ways, they’ve done more than earn it. There is also a tendency to just dismiss all things corporate media in the U.S. and in many ways they’ve …

But Chris Wallace, flawed as he may be, is no right-wing hack. He may make mistakes. He is certainly more conservative than we progressives like, but when surveying the American landscape, Wallace does fit fairly comfortably right down the middle. That alone is enough to earn the scorn of people on the left who want everyone to be Rachel Maddow. We at this site try to be a bit fairer. Rachel is a gift to journalism, intellectualism, and the nation, but she’s a progressive’s dream. Wallace is a centrist.

He was the right man for the job last night and it was – quite literally – a near-impossible job. Sure, there’s room for criticism, of course, there is. Some might have handled it better, many would have handled it much much worse.

But give Wallace credit, for one thing, he’s not at all afraid to admit that things didn’t go that well.

Wallace spoke to the New York Times Wednesday and called the debate an “incredible missed opportunity.” Some will criticize that he said, “I never dreamt it would go off the rails the way it did,” and the kool kidz will say “Idiot! Of course, Trump was going to …” Yes, of course, Trump was going to ignore the rules. But the fact is, even those of us that cover him daily were shocked at the degree to which Trump was out of control.

“I’ve read some of the reviews, I know people think, Well, gee, I didn’t jump in soon enough. I guess I didn’t realize — and there was no way you could, hindsight being 20/20 — that this was going to be the president’s strategy, not just for the beginning of the debate but the entire debate.”

Again, the cool thing to say is, “Well I did know it!” but I didn’t. That thing was a complete zoo break and there was no way to know or prepare. Additionally, Wallace pushed the envelope in chastising Trump, had he done much more, he would’ve given that much more ammunition to the Trumpers’ whining about the unfairness of it all.

Indeed, we find it rather impressive that Wallace simply admitted that he hadn’t prepared for a debate “like that” and he should have tried to control the debate better, that he didn’t know if ever really did, “then it was just going to go completely off the tracks.”

As we said, some could’ve done better and then faced even more wrath about “bias” from the Right. Their complaints would take some of the power away from the “loss” that Trump suffered when he proved himself to be too immature and out of control to run a Wendys, never mind the U.S.

We can fault Wallace for criticizing Biden’s responses and implying Biden got out of control “some” because Biden was in an even less tenable position. Had Biden followed the rules to the letter and keep his mouth shut except for spots in his time while ignoring Trump, he’d inevitably be called “weak” and too feeble to handle the “rough and tumble” world of politics. Or he could push back … some, in a measured way, as he did. Wallace should not have included Biden at all in the criticism, even though Wallace clearly laid 90% of it at the feet of Trump.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak