Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Conservatives Howl Over Veep Debate Moderator

Conservatives are inflamed over a report that the moderator of the upcoming vice presidential debate is the former wife of a high-level Obama appointee.

The moderator is ABC senior foreign correspondent Martha Raddatz, who is scheduled to moderate an Oct. 11 debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden.

Her ex-husband is FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, whom the Forward profiled as a “Talmud ace” two years ago.

Genachowski and Raddatz divorced in 1997, according to right-leaning news site The Daily Caller.

“How could it be? How could it be a conflict of interest?” Rush Limbaugh asked facetiously on his show today. Slightly misrepresenting the report, Limbaugh continued: “If you are in the dominant liberal culture of Washington, and you have a former top Obama official married to a debate moderator, where could there be a conflict?”

The dispute mirrors a recent criticism of former CNN host Campbell Brown, who was accused of not sufficiently disclosing her marriage to Romney advisor Dan Senor.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.