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With steaming heaps of all-natural, bovine end-product, piled high and deep. The folks at CNN are lashing out at bloggers and others who dare to question them on their packing the CNN/YouTube debate with questions from Democratic party operatives, sympathizers or activists.
After spending the day facing accusations it stacked the deck against the Republican presidential contenders by having Democratic backers ask video questions during its debate, CNN on Thursday responded that it doesn't know what the fuss is all about.
The cable news network, in collaboration with video Web site YouTube, hosted the Wednesday night debate that had more than 30 voters pose questions to the Republican candidates. It later turned out that several of those questioners are actively supporting Democratic candidates.
"The whole point of these ground-breaking CNN/YouTube debates is to focus on substantive questions of concern to real people and to throw open the process to a wider range of Americans all around the country. CNN cared about what you asked, not who you were. This was the case for both the Democratic and the Republican CNN/YouTube debates," CNN said in a statement issued late in the day.
"The issues raised during last night's debate were legitimate and relevant no matter who was asking the questions. The vested interests who are challenging the credibility of the questioners are trying to distract voters from the substantive issues they care most about. Americans are tired of that discredited low-road approach, and throughout this election campaign CNN will stay focused on what the candidates are saying about the pressing issues facing this country at a critical time in our history.
Now, I really could use a new vest. The old one is much too large since I lost all that weight feasting on the largess from the oil companies – the last group I supposedly got payoffs from for asking questions. The leftist blame game of accusing others of accepting payments or being "in the pockets" of those who oppose the left's views is getting old. And CNN has just displayed exactly why their behavior is being criticized. I am on the record as saying I did not care – at all – about the content of the questions. What I object to is the skewing of the playing field while CNN touts their objectivity. The Republican candidates handled the stacked questions pretty well, I thought. (I didn't see all of them.)
The rather obvious display of the "Clinton News Network's" bias is that they did not do even rudimentary fact-checking on the questions submitted by opposition activists. That is the issue. General Kerr, who asked the question that got the whole 'plant' thing raging appeared on CNN twice in 2003. They knew who this guy was and they had a responsibility to check who he was affiliated with.
Just to shovel all the bovine end product back off the real issue, CNN, here's the short version. You, as a custodian of a public debate, had a responsibility to ensure that political operatives and activists did not try to stack the deck. Were the questions wildly out of line? No. That does not change a thing. You had a responsibility to either ensure fairness or disclose things that might impact fairness.
You did neither. You are wrong. That is what the fuss is about.
But do send the new vest, won't you?
Now, I really could use a new vest. The old one is much too large since I lost all that weight feasting on the largess from the oil companies – the last group I supposedly got payoffs from for asking questions. The leftist blame game of accusing others of accepting payments or being "in the pockets" of those who oppose the left's views is getting old. And CNN has just displayed exactly why their behavior is being criticized. I am on the record as saying I did not care – at all – about the content of the questions. What I object to is the skewing of the playing field while CNN touts their objectivity. The Republican candidates handled the stacked questions pretty well, I thought. (I didn't see all of them.)
The rather obvious display of the "Clinton News Network's" bias is that they did not do even rudimentary fact-checking on the questions submitted by opposition activists. That is the issue. General Kerr, who asked the question that got the whole 'plant' thing raging appeared on CNN twice in 2003. They knew who this guy was and they had a responsibility to check who he was affiliated with.
Just to shovel all the bovine end product back off the real issue, CNN, here's the short version. You, as a custodian of a public debate, had a responsibility to ensure that political operatives and activists did not try to stack the deck. Were the questions wildly out of line? No. That does not change a thing. You had a responsibility to either ensure fairness or disclose things that might impact fairness.
You did neither. You are wrong. That is what the fuss is about.
But do send the new vest, won't you?
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While I agree that a candidate should be prepared to answer all kinds of questions, what annoys me is CNN’s attemp to stereotype repubs. The guys waving their guns. Waving the Bible, the Confederated Flag in the background. They were all liberal carricatures of republicans. And couldn’t CNN find more relevant questions to ask the candidates? Does anyone see the the repub nomination turning on issues like gun control, the Confederate Flag or the Bible? Good thing Condi Rice isn’t running. They probably would have had a video of a black guy standing by a barbeque asking her if she liked fried chicken and watermelon.
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Like all liberals, the people at CNN just don’t get it. No one is complaining about the issues that were raised by the planted questioners. The complaint is that the people asking the questions had a vested (yes, Gaius, they, too, have vests) interest in doing their best to make the candidates look bad and this was not disclosed to the general audience. That’s the equivalent of a prosecutor in a spousal abuse case asking the defendant “If you didn’t hit your wife on November 7th, just when was it that you stopped hitting her on a daily basis?” at a press conference without disclosing that he’s a prosecutor and his criminal case has a vested interest in how the response will affect the jury pool.
They just don’t see this as a problem. Of course if Republicans had managed to slip some Republican operatives into a Democatic candidate debate without revealing they were Republican operatives and it was later found out, CNN would be the first to pulicize it, yell “FOUL”, and make sure it was running continuously in the scrolling banner at the bottom of their screen. Anything is okay as long as it’s a liberal Democrat doing it.
It’s even okay, as far as they’re concerned, that they also packed their Democratic debate with Democratic operatives whom they presented to the audience as “undecided voters” who could then plant questions that would let their candidates look good. They outright lied about who these people were, but it’s okay because it’s them doing it.