Candy Crowley Does Not Take Any Shit

If you thought Martha Raddatz was tough in the vice presidential debate, wait until you see Candy Crowley.

When this year's moderators were announced, there were many pundits who cheered the equity of the gender balance of two men and two women. But as Carole Simpson, the last woman to moderate a presidential debate in 1992, pointed out in The Atlantic, the women still are still not getting their fair shot. While Jim Lehrer and Bob Schieffer get to moderate the first and last one-on-one presidential debates, Martha Raddatz got the vice presidential debate and Candy Crowley was given the job of the "lady with the microphone" at Tuesday night's town hall-style debate.

We can only hope that Candy Crowley gets to do more than just point her microphone at undecided (read: uninformed) voters in the audience. Since she took over as host of CNN's State of the Union in February of 2010, she's shown an unparalleled tenacity when it comes to holding politicians accountable for their talking points and refusing to let anyone get away with dodging her questions. Here are five of her more memorable encounters with politicians and spokespeople from both of the aisle over the last year.

After her high from winning the Iowa Straw Poll had long-since faded, Michele Bachmann was brought back down to earth by Candy Crowley who asked her what it felt like to watch her campaign "implode."

Herman Cain went on State of the Union to try to get out a hole he dug for himself on Piers Morgan Tonight, but Candy Crowley didn't let him get off that easy.

One of the hardest jobs for any political talk show host is getting her guest to give a "yes or no" answer. In June, Crowley fought hard to get David Axelrod to agree or disagree with his boss President Obama who said the "private sector's doing fine."

In the midst of the attacks on Mitt Romney for shipping jobs overseas while at Bain Capital, Candy Crowley pushed Ed Gillespie to help explain the elusive difference between "outsourcing" and "offshoring."

Joe Biden's admission that he personally embraced same-sex marriage on Meet The Press forced President Obama's hand on that issue. A few month's later, Candy Crowley backed Robert Gibbs into a wall on letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000 and it just happened that the next day the president announced he was pursuing that policy.