Sure, much of the blogosphere is already hashing over the curious number of hardcore Democrats selected to ask questions at last night’s GOP debate, but there are a couple of lesser-discussed points to emphasize for the Protein Wisdom audience.
First, the fact that retired brigadier general Keith Kerr — a member of Hillary Clinton’s steering committee for gay and lesbian supporters — was flown to the debate by CNN to ask about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is a nifty example of the identity politics so often skewered by our esteemed host, not unlike having children testify before Congress or give the Democrats’ radio address on childrens’ health insurance.
Second, given the general lack of interest by the GOP in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, since its enactment, one wonders whether this issue is more on the mind of Anderson Cooper than on the mind of the average Republican. The same could be said of the “Log Cabin Republicans” question asked by a declared supporter of Barack Obama. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Third, in hindsight, it looks like Cooper and CNN’s DC Bureau Chief David Bohrman really didn’t have their stories straight when they were interviewed by Mary Katherine Ham before the debate:
Q: There’s been a bit of scandal about the screening that CNN did on its “undecided voters†for the last Democratic debate. The diamonds-and-pearls question was attacked by the questioner herself. There were some allegations that several of the voters were in fact liberal activists on quite a few issues (and one Democratic Party operative). What’s the process for checking these YouTube questioners and their affiliations?
AC: “Well, campaign operatives are people, too. We don’t investigate the background of people asking questions…that’s not our job. Last time around (in the Democrat CNN/YouTube debate), there were questions from Joe Biden’s campaign…and we had some fun with that (disclosing who they were posed by). Things like that are generally pretty obvious. In watching these videos after a while, you can kind of tell, who’s really serious about an issue and who’s just parroting a press release or a talking point.â€ÂDB: “If it’s a loaded question, we’ll click back and check…some need vetting, and we’ll do that.â€Â
“We’re doing the best we can…but if a question is interesting on its face, it almost doesn’t matter.â€Â
Bohrman also pops up on The Caucus blog at the NYT:
Most questions online have been pulled from public viewing for review, but many of the remaining posts involve asking the candidates to defend their opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Those kinds of “lobbying grenades†would be disqualified by the CNN selection team, Mr. Bohrman said.
“There are quite a few things you might describe as Democratic ‘gotchas,’ and we are weeding those out,†Mr. Bohrman said. CNN wants to ensure that next Wednesday’s Republican event is “a debate of their party.â€Â
In reality, not so much, leaving open the classic question of whether CNN is stupid, nakedly partisan, or both.ÂÂ
A question about gay marriage would have at least been more relevant than “don’t ask, don’t tell” or the Log Cabin Republican question. And maybe an actual Republican might have asked it.
As for “who’s just parroting a press release or a talking point,” let’s keep in mind this question:
My name is LeeAnn Anderson and I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and these are my kids Evan and May. Maya is from China and we adopted him to give her a better life. We never dreamed that she would that she’d be exposed to lead after leaving China, and now we find trains like this that are covered with lead in our home.
My question for the candidates are, what are you going to do to make sure that these kind of toys don’t make their way into our homes and that we have safe toys that are made in America again and we keep jobs in America?
I guess this was too subtle for CNN to figure out that LeAnn was a union activist.
Next time, CNN may want to stick with questions from the snowmen. Better to intend to have people laugh at you than to achieve it unintentionally.
Update: FNC’s Bret Baier — guest-hosting Special Report — reports that Kerr was asked after the debate about his Clinton affiliation. Kerr reportedly responded that CNN had not asked him about it and thus he had not told them about it. Because of the irony.
“All and all not a bad guy; if looks, brains, and personality don’t count.”
“You’d better hope they don’t.”
–A conversation concerning one “Rug” Daniels.
CNN is the same, just different.
CNN wants to ensure that next Wednesday’s Republican event is “a debate of their party.
Which is why they were advertising for questioners on DU, a known hotbed of Republicanism.
CNN is nothing more fhan a DNC brain fart.
And they know it…
Isn’t it amazing how so many “journalists” are n
You expected maybe something different? More fool you.
I’d be real glad if all these yahoos would shut the hell up and stay offa my TV for the next six months or so. If they keep pissing me off by being in my face 24/7, I’m likely to vote Nader…
CNN is nothing more fhan a DNC brain fart.
And they know it…
Hmmm….
I’m not quite sure how that happened. I only posted once…
Why I will never become President… my answers to the two questions mentioned would have been
“When Congress has the balls to change ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ I’ll be happy to sign it into law” and
“Consumers seem to be happy buying easily affordable toys from overseas. Just like you’re happy to obtain babies from overseas. Why not give a kid from the wrong side of John Edwards’ Two Americas a better life?”
CNN = Democratic sock puppet.
At least the Republicans gave CNN a chance to host the debate, more than what the Dem’s gave Fox. The Republicans now have evidence to point back to as a reason to refuse CNN in the future, the Dems, as usual, still have nothing.
Fact-checking? Question vetting? Not their job. Getting the story out in the mose sensational way possible is their job.
No surprise here.
“Sure, much of the blogosphere is already hashing over the curious number of hardcore Democrats selected to ask questions at last night’s GOP debate…”
Just like they had hardcore Democrats asking the questions at the Democrat debate. Same people asking questions at both debates, what could be more fair and balanced than that?
Given that I heard that they got about 5,000 submittals and were the final arbiters of the questions selected, they pretty much were 100% responsible for the questions. They were ostensibly trying to get the candidates to answer questions that were of interest to REPUBLICAN voters. Somehow I doubt that Republican voters give much of a shit about “don’t ask, don’t tell”. It’s not real high on MY list of concerns. CNN just wanted to get some Republican sound bites of homophobia for the general election. Just in case.
I remember hearing one question about health care and thinking, “that’s not a Republican kind of question” it was too “what’s the government going to do for me?”
This exemplifies what I always say about this kind of shit. It pisses us off, as it does every single time, but the media does nothing to stop it. Not one damn thing. There should have been an uproar about Hillary planting people. Nope. There should have been an uproar about CNN doing this at the Dem debate. Nope. And there should be an uproar about this. Again, nope, not outside of us. They will not change because there are no consequences for their actions.
“Consumers seem to be happy buying easily affordable toys from overseas. Just like you’re happy to obtain babies from overseas. Why not give a kid from the wrong side of John Edwards’ Two Americas a better life?â€Â
Because they’ve all been aborted?
Damn you, Santa Claus! I’ll get you, and your little elves, too!
So this retired gay general just happened to make a Youtube video and then just happened to fly across the country and just happened to get into the debate and then just happened to be sitting in a convenient aisle seat and then just happened to have a wireless mic in his hand that just happened to be tuned to a frequency that CNN was monitoring on its sound board?
You know, if I hadn’t gotten a great deal on this here Brooklyn Bridge right after I fell off the turnip truck, I’d be skeptical.
Ok. Let’s take out the union and the snark and this is what remains:
Q: My question for the candidates are, what are you going to do to make sure that these kind of toys don’t make their way into our homes?
A: Consumers seem to be happy buying easily affordable toys from overseas.
Good luck with that.
Right, slip. We all want lots more expensive toys.
Well, I do. But first I want the money to be able to buy them.
…we’re not talking about the same thing, are we?
Apparently you missed the “Buy American” responses.
So what is that wretched old queen’s beef?
He retired honorably as a General and he’s a big ol’ homo. What’s the problem?
Pablo, I didn’t miss the Buy American responses in the debate. I missed it in here.
Right, slip. We all want lots more expensive toys.
You would choose to pay less for a toy coated with lead paint?
Again. Good luck with that.
CNN=DNC Propaganda Dept.
As a young lad during the Vietnam years, I heard the MSM being cursed for “media bias”. They were much more subtle then, the emergence of the alternative media prompting a bold strategy whereby the MSM stops being concerned about the bottom line or blatant partisanship. We with eyes to see shake our heads and marvel, surely everyone will realize the king has no clothes!
Actually, I wouldn’t have been too concerned if this mess happened during the general election cycle, but it’s really nothing less than outrageous for happening during the primaries.
I wonder how much responsibility the Republican Party bears for allowing themselves to be subject to this?
At least half in my estimation.
They should have Limbaugh put the whole thing together, we would then find out the differences between the Republican candidates, instead of how they respond to democrat talking points.
After all, isn’t that the purpose of the primaries?
Let’s imagine that a pro-choice Dem. asked this sort of question last night…
Governor Romney, Senator Thompson says that you ran to the left of Teddy Kennedy in 1994, that you were proudly pro-choice, as recently as 2005, and that his philosophy doesn’t depend on geography.
Who is more conservative: you or Fred Thompson?
Would you be objecting to that question today?
“Would you be objecting to that question today?”
Yes.
It’s infantile.
Here’s the question:
Bearing in mind that as POTUS, your only influence on “right to choose” is by the judges you nominate. Will you have a pro-life litmus test for federal judges?
Lee,
The infantile question I typed was asked of Romney last month at the Republican debate sponsored by Fox News. It was asked by Chris Wallace. Would you like me to post a link to the transcript?
Nah, I’ll take your word for it for the puroses of this conversation.
Do you deny it’s an infantile question?
You got me there. Most every question Chris Wallace asks is infantile.
The purpose of the questions is to force them to reveal their “conservatism”, or lack thereof. If you just come right out and ask, much less set it up in a hostile witness type of way, it’s defeating the purpose of the debate.
I missed that debate, but I’ll still wager that FOX didn’t try to pass off Chris Wallace as a “man on the street.” Nor, afaik, did FOX claim it wasn’t going to ask “gotcha” questions about abortion.
slip is — for some reason — missing the point, which is that by the standards announced in advance by CNN’s DC Bureau Chief, CNN abjectly failed to present the debate they claimed they wanted to present.
As for the toy question, slip says, “take out the union and the snark,” which conveniently ignores that CNN did neither.
I don’t think I am missing the point. Here is what I think:
Instead of whining about last night you should be boasting that the Republicans went on CNN and faced every slanted question thrown at them, while the Democrats refused to appear at a Fox News sponsored debate altogether. That would be an adult sort of reaction.
“. That would be an adult sort of reaction.”
So, we should rationalize letting the liberal establishment get one over on us by pointing out how they got away with one earlier…
It would be positivley uncivilized to complain, don’t you know,
“‘Right, slip. We all want lots more expensive toys.’
You would choose to pay less for a toy coated with lead paint?
Again. Good luck with that.”
You know those Thomas things are like $20 a piece, right fuckstick?
Actually, I pretty much said that over at HotAir this morning.
And you are missing the point. The integrity of outfits like CNN doing the debates is a much larger issue than the questions asked in a single primary debate. That the GOP candidates can answer the questions is just dandy, but it doesn’t serve the function that even CNN admits is the proper one.
But if you have some polling data showing the American voter is clamoring to rehash the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy at the expense of larger questions about the war (which was not addressed ouside questions about Iraq), I’ll reconsider.
I just might be the only person to the right of center who honestly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about this Kerr fellow asking questions. It’s not as if the candidates ever give a straight answer to anything that’s relevant.
More directly, I don’t think the fate of the nation revolves on don’t ask/don’t tell, nor should it.
Karl – It is intentionally missing the point.
Again, CNN and the rest of the MSM will continue to get away with this shit because there are absolutely no negative consequences for their actions. None.
Slarti – I think less people are pissed about the actual questions as opposed to the fact that they let CNN and the Dems ask questions that the mythical Republicans in their heads care about, rather than the real issues confronting us today. Additionally, I think people are more fried about this because it is so fucking blatant, that they do not even try to hide this shit any longer.
I heard a caller on a radio show today refer to the vestigial media:
http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?vestigial
I like it.
wankers the lot of you — especially JD and Jefey. Dan Collins, put that L up on your for’ed.
you all are a joy :)
After the last couple of years, this is the camel-killing straw?
Ok, you wanna hear crazy? I think they’re doing it on purpose: nothing drives readership up like a juicy scandal. Well, maybe when you’ve got a couple of big dogs fighting tooth and nail over that juicy schedule, that’d be bigger.
Crazy chick got bored at her blog all by herself.
No, this is not the proverbial straw. On that, you are right.
Like I said, it really does not matter. We can get mad, not get mad, but so long as the MSM can overtly pull this kind of garbage, and suffer no negative consequences, it will continue to happen. It is like they are trying to beat someone into submission. At the point where we quit caring, we will have effectively just given up, and let them win. I have no idea what can be done, and frankly doubt it can be changed in any significant manner.
test
“their party”?
Okay, PW is eating my comments with URLs.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that.
See people-press DOT org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=348
I’m very disinclined to give CNN the benefit of the doubt for this simple reason: 1 questioner from Clinton’s camp. 1 questioner from Edwards’s camp. 1 questioner from Obama’s camp. Statistically, what are the chances of that sort of parity occurring in a random selection of questioners of GOPers? Not very likely. That there was a questioner from each of the camps tells me that CNN likely orchestrated this event with the DNC and the candidates’ campaigns. That is the only way it is possible to have Clinton, Edwards, and Obama represented. As for the patent lie that nobody background checked Kerr and the other plants, oh please! Now I know why CNN folks admired Clinton so much: he was a particularly skillful and obvious liar; they are just obvious liars.
Karl – Of CNN’s viewers, 91% view their coverage favorably. I cannot see how any of the Dems that like CNN are going to have a problem with this blatant manipulation of a Republican debate.
JD you sound dejected. Pobrecito.
All is lost when you’ve lost the JD.
What questions would you all have asked?
The Democrats are the party of fraud and deceit, and the MSM is their oiled and pliant servant.
I think that everyone who suggests letting it slide because we should “expect” it from them, or it’s more “adult” to let someone shit on your lawn without complaint, needs to SERIOUSLY go back and take Econ 101 over again.
If you reward a behavior, you will get more of it.
Republicans HAVE BEEN “lying back and trying to enjoy it” for decades. It’s long past time to fight back. Don’t just let a journalist get away with misleading statements, planting fake questioners, lying about their own standards, asking “have you stopped beating your wife” questions – hang it around their damned necks, force them to answer for their frauds or give them nothing.
Oh, dear, they might say you’re rude. Well, guess what, you’re a pretty damned long way down that road already.
Playing “nice” with the MSM has gained you nothing. It has kept a Dem party filled to the brim with liars, crooks, frauds, and crazed idiots in power.
DO NOT PLAY THEIR GAME. They make and change the rules any time they want. The only reason we’re anywhere near a plurality is because the Dems have been off their damned nuts for years. If we had a press corps that wasn’t utterly locked in place on the left, it wouldn’t even be close.
You are NOT EVER going to get the MSM to play it straight by letting them get away with playing it crooked.
Unfortunately, this is apparently the hardest possible lesson to learn.
I am a little aghast at how many people are defending or minimizing CNN’s perfidy here. CNN needs to be reminded that the blood of innocents is on their hands for their bootlicking behavior to Hussein so they could keep their office in Baghdad going. They have a long history of lies and fraud, and they have forsaken the right to be taken any kind of seriously.
They are the God-damned Enquirer, and honoring them by speaking to them, other than reminding them of their piss-poor track record, is just encouraging their lies.
It’s warming up to be a real crapfest of an election, if this is who you’ve got “reporting” the “news.”
the thing that bothers me most about Kerr’s question is that nobody challenged him on the premise that he stated they “think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.†Have any Republican candidates made a statement to that effect? (didn’t another questioner say that Romney had said something about ‘looking forward to when they can serve openly in the military’)? and if Kerr is so bothered by DADT why is he supporting the “co-president” of the guy that enacted it?
Mero, I think you should have posted that rant a few years ago.
It’s not going to be a Dem/Repub election. Might as well put two Dems up.
JD, Jefey and Dano among others, have made a Dem in the Presidency a certainty.
Good rant, though.
maggie, are you not aware of your party’s platform wrt to gays in the military?
Mergovign – Bravo !
michelines – Fuck off. Take your meds. Talk to your cats. Go away.
Yeah, but over time, the number of CNN viewers, let alone those who trust it, goes down.
perhaps you could cite it for me Michele? cause a search for “homosexual” doesn’t turn up anything here
Come on, maggie. You know we are all about discriminating against the homosexuals. We just look for ways to do it. The irony that Kerr was on a Kerry and now Clinton campaign committee when it was Bubba Clinton that implemented DADT is so rich, and completely lost on so many.
Karl – I trust you when it comes to charts and stats, not my forte. If CNN is showing a downward trend that others are not, I say bravo, and will keep my fingers crossed that MSNBC and the nightlies are not far behind.
The actual numbers don’t really mean much to me. The folks that still accept CNN as an unbiased source of “news” are not going to be effected by something like this, as they would likely approve, as shown by the leftists defending this all over the blogs today.
well yeah, JD, that’s why I do so much musical theater. to take jobs away from them.
Don’t you go getting all heterophobic on us, maggie.
Maggie – We had people over the other night, and my better half got out a videotape of me, freshman year of high school, playing Patrick Dennis in Mame. I had not seen that in over 20 years. Some of our neighbors might still be laughing.
heh, I’ve got a great DVD of Suor Angelica that I would pull out at parties… okay, i wasn’t the bad one in that production but three years on people still talk about it. Think “Florence Foster Jenkins and her equally talented cousin(if such a thing existed)” as Angelica and the Principessa.
RTO tells me it was actually a year and a half ago. I’ve slept since then. It is becoming legend.
anyhoo, i didn’t watch the debate live, RTO caught maybe the last half of it, but he was telling me about Kerr’s question and how he was disappointed with Mitt’s answer. Romney gets kind of rambly.
The downward trend is not all CNN, but it is across the board, even among Independents.
BTW, I posted a sequel just now.
I’d be more worried if CNN and the print media were getting more eyeballs instead of fewer year over year. Since the only people who bother with CNN and the NYT are their echo chambers and those who want to catch them out, this doesn’t make much difference. Honestly, I think it a positive that CNN’s effort to prove they get the new-media, e-community thing has devolved into the same hacks asking the same questions so fast. It suggests they’re actively charging toward the tar pits instead of just slinking along in the general direction.
Four years from now, the people who care will get 90% of their election news from the net and the rest of the population will (even more than now!) use the remote to get rid of the boring guys (and gal) and get back to mud wrestling, Big Brother Lost in the Office or whatever dreck is being served up. Then they’ll vote for the candidate who is tallest or has the best hair. Since people are pretty evenly divided on the importance of hair versus height, it’ll be another squeaker, but the breakdown amongst the 10% of the population that actually cares will determine the winner.
As for Anderson Cooper, people will only pause long enough to identify him as the guy in the remainders display at the entrance to the café at Barnes and Noble.
For some reason, we still get the LAT delivered here every day. The sports section is the only thing I even bother to pick up anymore.
It is unwise to attribute to malice alone that which can be attributed to malice and stupidity. – M. Simon
#
Comment by Michelle on 11/30 @ 12:44 am #
maggie, are you not aware of your party’s platform wrt to gays in the military?
Michelle. Are you aware of your parties platform on free speech?
Ler’s make a few assumptions. CNN knew the questioners’partisan loyalities or they did not. If they knew, (the more probable in my opinion), they either believed this fore-knowledge would be uncovered or not. Once uncovered, (we’re moving more and more towards speculation now), they might have believed it would or would not matter, the damage having been done. In the vernacular, I think their choices were a jab to the eyes, and a ‘don’t give a flying f**k about anyone’s opinions but their own, we don’t give two shites what anyone thinks, and you pesants can’t do anything about it anyway.’ The intended to pack the “debates” regardless of any criterion of bias, honesty or forthrightness.
One more thing. I suppose the vageries of chance could account for all the speculation. Like the WWII film where the GI, in combat for two years got a letter from home telling him he was the new father of a boy, and the GI kept repeating, “I believe it. Yeah, I believe it. I believe it…” Uh huh.
On the face of it, the questions were fine, if kind of off topic to the debate. What really steams me is that Republicans will never get the same opportunity. I would love to get a chance to pose some hard questions to Hillary and Obama, for example. That is the real rub, we are shut out of that.
Though politically I have a visceral aversion to the Democrat Party, I don’t see what the big deal is about the debate. The Republicans allowed themselves to be bullied into the silly format in the first place. They knew what to expect from CNN, so why complain about getting what they expected? In the second place, as one blogger noted: CNN did not pick the answers to the “planted” questions. Anderson Cooper is right. It doesn’t matter who asks the question. What matters is how it is answered.
“It doesn’t matter who asks the question. What matters is how it is answered.”
Go do some research on phrasing poll questions, then get back with us on that.
Fascinating. CNN hosted a debate by Democrats and a debate about Republicans.
Gorilla Monsoon: “DiBiase tripped Santana!”
Bobby Heenan: “Actually, he tripped over a tortilla.”
“Go do some research on phrasing poll questions, then get back with us on that.”
It wasn’t a poll. It was supposed to be a debate. The candidates could explain themselves outside the constraints of polling. If, after a debate, all the interest is on the questions and the questioners, then the candidates have failed miserably to broadcast their messages.
Tito – You are completely missing the point. What Republicans give a shit about Clinton’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy? What Republicans are out there concerned about whether or not the candidates believe ever single word in the Bible?
CNN deliberately framed the questions to appeal to their idea of what Republicans would want to hear about. It is the same God, gays, and guns stereotype that they run with and the Dems bitch about every election cycle. Only problem is that it only exists in their eyes.
If, after a debate, all the interest is on the questions and the questioners, then the candidates have failed miserably to broadcast their messages.
Alternatively, it show that the ones hosting the debate are unprincipled immoral partisan hacks. Which is, of course, why we give our press freedoms that the rest of us don’t enjoy, so they can shill for the party they like. In the name of fairness.
It was bullshit, but then again, did the Repubs expect any different? That’s not to say, “take it like a whore”, but to just underscore that we all know CNN’s allegiance so why are we shocked?
The only thing that surprised me was that it was so blatantly biased and stereotypically leftwing.
Tito
So a Democratic debate in which the questions posed by Republican supporters on, say, Travelgate, Monica Lewinsky, the Rich pardon, Obama’s drug use, John Edwards’ house, would be just fine with you, right?
Then one might ask about the concept of the CNN/YouTube debates generally. If a debate is promoted largely on the basis of who the questioners will be, one should not feign shock when the questioners become the topic of discussion.
If CNN really wanted high ratings and an ultra-sensational Democratic debate, they’d have Monica Lewinsky sitting in the front row. And they’d advertise it: 9:00 Tuesday. Hillary vs. Monica.
I’d tune in.
Front row, hell. Jello vat.
But McGehee,
How are you supposed to know where the Jello ends and Hillary and Monica start?
………grotey
“The candidates could explain themselves outside the constraints of polling.”
If they had more than 30 seconds, perhaps. But trying to answer a deceptively worded question, or just plain old bullshit question, in 30 seconds is not going to happen. You need more time than that to get back on point.
“If, after a debate, all the interest is on the questions and the questioners, then the candidates have failed miserably to broadcast their messages.”
You think? Almost like it was planned that way, huh?
Michelle – which of your two synapses makes you think this is the first time I’ve pointed out that the MSM are rectal polyps?
And to all the whining bitches who are whining about the bitching – this isn’t shock, it’s anger.
I’m not shocked if a druggie tries to break into my house, but if I catch them, they’re gonna have a bad day.
Maybe if more people stopped asking why other people are “shocked” without having a freaking clue what the hell they’re talking about, and instead told CNN the fuck off and made sure everyone else got an earful, then maybe, just maybe, CNN might lose enough business to get an attitude adjustment.
Or to go out of business, which would be fine with me.
Or you could just keep enabling the people who lie to you and spit in your faces by making excuses for them.
It’s up to you.
What do you propose Merovign? I’m all ears, if you have a valid proposal to make CNN lose business as bad as you, and I, would like them to…
Michelle. Do you think you could turn the vibrator off before you post? Just askin’.
It’s the only thing that gets blood flowing through her brain — which in light of the last two words in the first sentence in Merovign’s most recent comment, is kind of ironic.
OI – well, I start my making the points above to any that will listen (when the topic comes up, I’m not a fanatic). I offer proof, and I find often that people who haven’t “had the time” to look any of it up are a little shaken by haw badly, and how often, they’ve been lied to. Sure, some people make excuses or won’t consider it, but there you go.
I also, you may have noticed, try to bite back when people make excuses for the scum.
Sure, if I was a billionaire with boundless energy, or, Hell, just had boundless energy, I’d probably be trying to build up some competition.
Fox has sucked a lot of wind out of that particular sail, but they’re far more sensationalist than balanced any day.
On the other hand, if your point is that I should have an alternative blueprinted and approved by the planning commission before I tell the excusers to shut up, well, Homey fails to participate in that recreational activity.
I’m just well-and-throughly rejecting the “well you should have expected it” defense – and if it’s not a defense, you need to be aware that it looks a hell of a lot like a “why don’t we just drop it” argument, which is absurd on the face if the goal is to solve the problem rather than to prolong it.
Mero, I apologize for assuming that your rant up thread was your first. My bad. I actually agree with you basic premise. I don’t have cable — never have — so I don’t get info from Fox or CNN or MSNBC. Like you, (I’m assuming again, but this time more positively) I get my news from non-MSM sources.
As far as the Republican debate goes — blaming media for what that party’s candidates say is a little silly. (Oh, and I generally attact JD, Jefey and Dan just for fun — they take themselves so seriously.)
There are many ways to examine the various candidates’ positions without even viewing one debate. I haven’t seen any of them live — just vids and reports later. Perhaps you are like me and keep measuring what you read and hear and then make decisions based on that.
The whole point of the thread was the media, Michelle. Your confession to being completely ignorant of the subject is almost endearing, except for it highlighting what an idiot you are for commenting at all.