The loser of Wednesday night’s debate, according to many pundits and political commentators? 
 
 Moderator Jim Lehrer. 
 
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 reset Media piles on moderator Lehrer 
 
 Lehrer, the executive editor of "PBS Newshour," sat behind the desk for the 12th time in the history of televised presidential debates on Wednesday night — and drew some of the most blistering reviews of his career. The consensus: Lehrer did not control the debate, failed to enforce the time limits, did not press the candidates enough and generally was steamrolled by the presidential candidates, Mitt Romney in particular. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Lehrer: The master of moderation) 
 
 Chris Wallace of "Fox News Sunday" criticized Lehrer for seeming to “lose some control” of the candidates, and questioned whether his questions sometimes helped President Barack Obama. 
 
 “Jim Lehrer, a man for whom I have tremendous esteem, seemed to lose control of the debate, occasionally,” Wallace said. “He seemed to just simply throw something out there to keep the conversation going, sometimes it seemed to be helping Obama, like saying, ‘Well, gee, so you are for a balanced approach of tax cuts and spending — tax increases and spending cuts,’ and that really seemed to lose some control.” 
 
 On MSNBC, Chris Matthews knocked Lehrer for not being aggressive, saying, “I thought the moderator did not moderate.” 
 
 (PHOTOS: Presidential debate moderators) 
 
 “He didn’t follow up,” Matthews said. “Today, moderators are expected to be aggressive, they’re going to ask a question, they throw it out there, they don’t just say a topic. They ask a question.” 
 
 Also on MSNBC, The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman blasted Lehrer as “practically useless.” 
 
 “Jim Lehrer was practically useless as the moderator,” Fineman said. “It was criminal negligence not to follow up on the question — ‘Mr. Romney, specifically what tax loopholes or deductions do you want to get rid of?’ He didn’t ask it.” 
 
 (PHOTOS: Scenes from Denver debate) 
 
 CNN contributor James Carville said Lehrer “let those guys freelance and go back and forth,” and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow noted that “Lehrer — to the extent that he tried to assert himself — got rolled over by Romney again and again and again.” 
 
 Before the debate, NBC’s Ted Koppel defended Lehrer’s role as debate moderator, telling POLITICO that “the pressing in a debate needs to come from the adversary: It’s up to the candidates to say to one another, ‘I heard Jim’s question and you’re not answering it.’ This is not about whether we want Jim Lehrer to be president.” ||||| Moderator Candy Crowley is facing criticism over her performance in the second presidential debate, with conservatives alleging that she sided with President Obama and one group even calling on her to be fired. 
 
 
 
 "Crowley's behavior goes beyond despicable as it was a blatant attempt to influence the presidential election," Americans for Limited Government said in a statement Wednesday. "If CNN wants to maintain any shred of credibility as a 'news' organization, they should fire Crowley immediately for her gross violation of whatever remains of journalistic standards." 
 
 Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck tweeted during the debate that "Candy loves to police Romney! As soon as he begins to win she shuts him down." Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote, "There goes Candy holding Romney's feet to the fire while, letting Obama unchain his muse." Another conservative, John Nolte, wrote, "Crowley is the one losing this debate. She's been absolutely disgraceful and biased from choice of questions to time." Rush Limbaugh complained Wednesday that Crowley had committed "an act of journalistic terror." 
 
 
 
 It wasn't just the commentators. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said Crowley overstepped her bounds in trying to fact check the candidates. "When you have two candidates disagreeing, it's not the role of the moderator to say, 'Mr. President, you're right' or 'Gov. Romney, you're right,'" he told Crowley on CNN Wednesday. 
 
 
 
 The attacks on Crowley are different than the criticism of moderator Jim Lehrer after the first presidential debate. Lehrer was deemed too deferential, while Crowley is being criticized for inserting herself into the conversation with questionable facts. But the overarching dynamic is the same: In this polarized political age, a debate moderator has little chance to escape a harsh critique. Even Martha Raddatz, who kept tight control on last week's vice presidential debate and challenged both candidates, was deemed by conservatives to have sided with Joe Biden. 
 
 Second presidential debate: Libya 
 
 To be sure, debate moderators should not be insulated from criticism. The questions during Tuesday night's town hall debate, which were chosen by Crowley, more often than not played into the president's hands - perhaps reflecting the fact that the town hall was held in a blue state. And Crowley's decision to side with the president over whether he had deemed the Libya attack an act of terror, when the reality was not so clear cut, was a misstep. 
 
 
 
 But the moderator's impact on the debate is ultimately relatively small: It is the candidates, after all, who do most of the talking. The moderator, meanwhile, has to try to keep the conversation moving while giving the candidates equal time, correcting false claims and steering answers back toward the question. For partisans looking to explain away a poor performance by their candidate, she or he makes an easy target precisely because it's almost impossible to pull all that off perfectly. It should come as no surprise that many Democrats suggested that Mr. Obama lost the first debate in part because Lehrer let Romney roll over him, while many Republicans suggested Romney lost the second one because Crowley handed it to the president. That's a lot easier than just admitting your guy screwed up. 
 
 Moderator-bashing has taken on the nasty tone that partisans increasingly bring to just about every interaction they have with the news media. In the Republican primary debates, Newt Gingrich used attacks on debate moderators to score political points. 
 
 "It's such a hyper-politicized environment that people are looking to jump on any slight perception of favoritism one way or the other," said Alan Schroeder, a professor at Northeastern University and an expert on presidential debates. "This is unusually intense criticism for the moderators, and people are misplacing their focus here." 
 
 "This is not about the moderators," he said. "The moderators do the best they can under extremely difficult circumstances." 
 
 Crowley's decision to insert herself into the town hall format, which she made clear before the debate, prompted the campaigns to complain she was overstepping her bounds. While moderators have become more proactive in recent campaign cycles, in the past they tended to be more willing to simply play traffic cop, said Schroeder. 
 
 And Crowley's willingness to fact check on the fly reflects an increasing move in the news media to challenge erroneous claims. It's a development that has been welcomed by many but also comes with risks, both because the journalist may not have their facts right and because challenging a candidate can contribute to perceptions that the journalist is biased. 
 
 Crowley isn't offering apologies. Though she initially seemed to backtrack on her Libya fact check, suggesting that Romney was "right in the main, I just think he picked the wrong word," she later maintained that she had not in fact done so. She said on "The View" Wednesday morning that her fact check was simply an attempt to move the conversation forward, and suggested that criticism of her performance was inevitable. 
 
 
 
 "People are going to look at this through the prism they look at this through," Crowley said. "I get that." 
 
 
 
 Due Diligence: Did Obama initially deem Libya attacks a terrorist act?
– The Denver debate wasn't President Obama's finest moment, but many pundits say there was a bigger loser: PBS' Jim Lehrer. The 78-year-old moderator struggled to enforce time limits and seemed to let the candidates—especially Mitt Romney—take control, Politico reports. Fox's Chris Wallace accused Lehrer of failing to control the debate and of asking questions that helped Obama, while MSNBC's Chris Matthews said, "I thought the moderator did not moderate." The "Poor Jim" tag trended on Twitter soon after the debate began and a "Silent Jim Lehrer" account gained thousands of followers, New York reports. After the debate, an Obama spokeswoman suggested Lehrer had failed to control Romney. "I sometimes wondered if we even needed a moderator because we had Mitt Romney," she said. "We should rethink that for the next debate." A Romney adviser fired back, "You know you've lost the debate when you start blaming the moderator for a poor performance." This was the 12th presidential debate Lehrer has moderated, but moderators have increasingly come under attack; days earlier, he said he was outraged by suggestions that he was an uninspired choice.