Moderator answered critics of recent days

At least one figure on the stage Thursday night reached a high standard for reason, fairness and class.

Gwen Ifill of PBS lived up, in every sense, to her title: moderator. She directed the candidates to important topics, pushed to keep them on subject and betrayed no favoritism.

Some partisan critics had suggested in recent days that Ifill was unfit for the role because she is the author of a book about American politics in the "age of Obama." As in Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee.

That information sent some conservative commentators, including Richard Viguerie, into convulsions of dismay and anger. Surely, Ifill was a liberal plant who would try to tilt the debate toward Joseph Biden.

Viguerie said Wednesday that Democrats would agree to debates only where they got "the home-field advantage, only when the questioners are people who see liberalism as objective reality and who consider the opinions of conservative, mainstream Americans to be backward and ill-informed."

If those were Ifill's feelings, she sure kept them concealed.

What the critics who set out to pillory Ifill willfully failed to acknowledge — because it did not suit their political aims — was that real journalists, who doubtless have biases, can and will put them aside to do their jobs.

And the 53-year-old journalist is a professional, one who has covered the White House, Congress and presidential campaigns for four newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Her upcoming book, "Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," will feature three other politicians, along with Obama.

Journalists and commentators are perfectly justified in noting that Ifill has written the book. And voters can judge for themselves whether that project swayed her to help Obama's running mate or to throw obstacles in front of his Republican rival.

Ifill answered those questions admirably, showing that, regardless of her personal feelings, she knows how to moderate a serious political discussion. And how to fade gracefully into the background — something her loud critics, who assumed the worst, should think about doing.