About six months ago, I posted about a NewsHour debate moderated watched by Judy Woodruff, noting [savagely!] that "you can take the girl out of CNN, but you can't take the CNN out of the girl."

Well apparently she somehow missed that post, because a couple of weeks ago, Norman Podhoretz and Fareed Zakaria got together, and it was just as bad.

Dear Judy: you are the moderator. You are there to "moderate." Allowing one of your guests to say pretty much whatever he'd like is not moderating. It is watching. And it leads to conversations that would be far more at home on CNN or Fox than on the NewsHour:

NORMAN PODHORETZ: Well, I'll tell you why. First, I want to say that I think the attitude expressed by Fareed Zakaria represents an irresponsible complacency that I think is comparable to the denial in the early '30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Norman, perhaps instead of calling me names, you could just explain why the arguments are right or wrong. That would be just fine.

NORMAN PODHORETZ: Why can't the...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Let's let Mr. Podhoretz finish his point.

NORMAN PODHORETZ: Yes, I would appreciate being allowed to finish my point.

Because we wouldn't want to deprive the world of a pearl of wisdom like that.

(Relatedly, Josh Marshall had a similar reaction to Podhoretz, but didn't mention Woodruff. And that same day, Paul Krugman went up with a great Podhoretz takedown ("Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?").)

On tonight's NewsHour, Judy Woodruff moderated a frustrating debate between VoteVets.org founder Jon Soltz and vile Move America Forward chair Melanie Morgan (who, without going too deep into the ad hominems, has clearly spent some time with the drunken plastic surgeon responsible for Jennifer Coolidge's lips).

Somewhat inevitably, Soltz came off as reasonable, considerate, and intelligent; and Morgan came off as a walking talking point who hums with her mouth open.* But read that debate transcript (or listen to the audio), and let me know if you can get to the end without losing a bit of respect for Judy Woodruff. To grant someone like Melanie Morgan the gift of NewsHour airtime, and then completely fail to call her on any of her ridiculous bullshit ("Well, it's nice to know that you [former Army captain Jon Soltz] really believe in the fearsome firepower of al-Qaida and in their ability to win a war. And I think what you [former Army captain Jon Soltz] are saying is shameful and really disrespectful to our troops.")... well, you can take the girl out of CNN, but you can't take the CNN out of the girl.

* - I would have liked to include a link to the scene from A Mighty Wind that I'm referring to, but I couldn't find it online. So I'm afraid you'll have to imagine it. Also, this still only counts as one ad hominem, since I'm basically just repeating the Jennifer Coolidge joke from the first paragraph.