FOX News has a Q&A with Chris Wallace and Brit Hume about their preparation for tonight’s debate. An excerpt:
Q: How do you plan to or do you have any say in how to control an unruly candidate?
CW: That’s what they pay Brit to do. He’s got the whip and the chair.
BH: One of the things that I think is one of the least attractive roles that a journalist or a broadcaster plays in a debate is the role of time cop so I am going to try to get out of that. One of the things we have tried in the past is have a distinct clear bell that goes off when the time is up, which says to the audience, the candidate and everybody else, this candidate’s time is up and he or she — in the case here, it’s all hes — is still talking. Then if the journalist later comes in and says you’re time is up, it doesn’t seem like the rude and obtrusive interruption by a smart-alecky journalist. The bell has proved very effective in the past. It works. It might not this time but it always has.
If we’ve learned anything from Siegfried and Roy, it’s that having “the whip and the chair” won’t help Hume at all if Ron Paul decides to bite him in the neck. (h/t TVNewser)