Take the second presidential debate between President Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. Debate organizers say they want to avoid a situation in which the debate becomes one big fact-checking or hectoring exercise and never gets to important policy differences. Nobody wants a repeat of Matt Lauer’s performance a couple of weeks ago when he let Mr. Trump’s claim that he always opposed the Iraq war go unchallenged. One person does — Mr. Trump, who portrayed critics of Mr. Lauer as liberals seeking to push debate moderators to be tougher on him than on Mrs. Clinton. There’s one way both he and Mrs. Clinton can avoid lopsided treatment: Tell the truth.

Source: New York Times September 25, 2016 18:50 UTC