Some In The Media Got Last Nights Forum Right

New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait described the forum as the “scariest thing” he’s seen during the whole campaign: “I had not taken seriously the possibility that Trump could win the presidency until I saw Lauer host … Lauer’s performance was not merely a failure, it was horrifying and shocking. The shock, for me, was the realization that most Americans inhabit a very different news environment than professional journalists. I not only consume a lot of news, since it’s my job, I also tend to focus on elite print news sources. Most voters, and all the more so undecided voters, subsist on a news diet supplied by the likes of Matt Lauer. And the reality transmitted to them from Lauer matches the reality of the polls, which is a world in which Clinton and Trump are equivalently flawed.”

Slate’s Fred Kaplan called the whole thing "a waste of time": "What an ill-focused forum, a senseless not-quite-debate, another wasted hour in an election season that’s been more wasteful and dispiriting than anyone could have imagined possible, until it gets more dispiriting still.”