also argued that media outlets exaggerated criticism of Gore as early as July 22, 1999, when Gore, known for being an environmentalist, had a friend release 500 million gallons of water into a drought-stricken river to help keep his boat afloat for a photo shoot. Media outlets, however, exaggerated the actual number of gallons that were released to four billion. 2008 In the 2008 presidential election, media outlets were accused of discrediting Barack Obama's opponents in an effort to help him win the Democratic primary and later the general election. At the February debate, Tim Russert of NBC News was criticized for what some perceived as disproportionately-tough questioning of the Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton. Among the questions, Russert had asked Clinton but not Obama to provide the name of the new Russian president, who was Dmitry Medvedev. That was later parodied on Saturday Night Live. In October 2007, liberal commentators accused Russert of harassing Clinton over the issue of supporting drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants. On April 16, 2008, ABC News hosted a debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos were criticized by viewers, bloggers and media critics for the poor quality of their questions. Many viewers said they considered some of the questions to be irrelevant compared to the importance of the faltering economy or the Iraq War. Included in that category were continued questions about Obama's former pastor, Clinton's assertion that she had to duck sniper fire in Bosnia more than a decade earlier, and Obama's failure to wear an American flag pin. The moderators focused on campaign gaffes, and some believed that they focused too much on Obama. Stephanopoulos defended their performance by claiming that "Senator Obama was the front-runner" and that the questions were "not inappropriate or irrelevant at all." In an op-ed published on April 27, 2008, in The New York Times, Elizabeth Edwards wrote that the media covered much more of "the rancor of the campaign" and "amount of money spent" than "the candidates' priorities, policies and principles." Author Erica Jong commented that "our press has become a sea of triviality, meanness and irrelevant chatter." A Gallup poll released on May 29, 2008, also estimated that more Americans felt the media was being harder on Clinton than they were on Obama. In a joint study by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard