As noted in Part 2, all sorts of folks noted that CNN seemed fond of questions that reinforced CNN’s stereotype of the GOP, instead of the issues which most concern Republicans… or other voters, such as those gathered at The New York Times, who noted that questions on major issues like health care, education, energy and Iran, etc., were not asked of the candidates.
It turns out that the suspect questions were quite relevant to certain special interest groups. For example, it turns out that gay rights groups are currently trying to gin up a new debate over the “don’t ask, don’t tell†policy. It also turns out that the United Steelworkers just launched a new phase of its “Protect Our Kids – Stop Toxic Imports†campaign.
I QUESTION THE TIMING!!!
Recall what Anderson Cooper told Mary Katherine Ham:
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.
Or just recall Anderson Cooper, as his powers of observation seem to be defective.
Remember that old Gloria Vanderbilt clothing commercial jingle?
“Gloria Vanderbilt bottoms are the tops!”
Do you suppose Anderson Cooper is a bottom or a top?
I suspect Hanlon’s razor might apply: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
After the last Democratic debate two of CNN’s three post debate analysts had worked for the Clintons and quite naturally gave HRC (Her Royal Clintonness) high marks. The Gateway Pundit also links to a piece claiming all six of the questioners at the Dem debate were plants. After that debacle you’d think CNN would be more careful. They had to know that people would call them on any irregularities. So either they are incredibly brazen — to the point of not caring what this does to their long-term credibility — or incredibly stupid. At any rate they have to be incredibly stupid to do this on purpose and think no one would notice, or incredibly stupid not to vet the questioners, no matter how good they thought the questions were on their own merits.
Whatever the problem might be, if the Cartoon News Network should tell me it’s raining I’m going to look outside before I believe them, ’cause I’m not convinced those boys are smart enough to come in out of the rain.
Got to love this comment, which applies just as well now as it did after the Democratic debate: “To paraphrase Junior Soprano, CNN is so far up the DNC’s hind end, Howard Dean can taste hair gel.”
Was the following a fair question to ask of a candidate at a Republican debate?
“Governor, if I may — because we’re running out of time, I’d like to ask you, if you’d answer the question, which is, does it bother you that as you sit here and we see the 10 candidates on the stage, there is not a single minority running for president in your party?”
The following is an exchange from the Fox News sponsored debate for Republicans in September…
“CAMERON: A lot of conservatives would like to see a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
And we have a chance here to talk to Heidi Turcotte of Dover, state employees — a state employee, Health and Human Services social worker.
What do you think, should we be banning — should there be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?
HEIDI TURCOTTE, N.H. STATE EMPLOYEE: Absolutely not. We’re the state of live free or die, and people should be able to marry the person they love.
(APPLAUSE)
CAMERON: OK. So let’s take that question from Heidi Turcotte — and there you hear the reaction from Granite Staters, the “Live Free or Die” state — and pose this to Sam Brownback.
Senator Brownback, should there be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage? And if so, why?”
I don’t remember any complaints about that question. A State Employee/Union Member given a voice at a Republican forum? Why is that OK for Fox, but verboten for CNN?
Slipper, do you have a point that couldn’t be covered up with a judiciously selected hat?
One thing really bothers me about all this: It would be one thing if CNN had simply chosen “questions that reinforced CNN’s stereotype of the GOP”. However, I can’t believe that choosing questions they liked from some 5000 questioners would have included quite so many ringers purely by accident. Someone at CNN must have chosen those people, not just liking their questions, but knowing they were ringers.
Yet with 5000 questions to choose from, surely they could have found legitimate undecided Republican voters who had asked all those same questions. They could have had these same questions asked and maintained plausible deniability, but they didn’t do that.
Does Dick Cheney have a mole at CNN headquarters? Did some wog at CNN choose those questioners just to show how stupid and partisan his bosses are? Does CNN have an institutional death wish? Are they all simply too f’ing stupid to breathe?
Or did they know full well they can get away with it? Google gives 989,000 hits on CNN debate plant, while Google News returns 122. We in the intertubes are screaming our heads off, but the average CNN viewer and MSM consumer, and probably the average voter, remains blissfully ignorant.
So.. what? Are the folks at CNN ignorant? Are they tools? Or are they brazenly trying to manipulate a presidential election?
[Sigh] Okay, I’ll put my Rosie tinfoil hat away now. I really don’t like sounding like a raving Truther, but the more I read about CNN’s behavior in these debates the more I wonder. This is just too weird.
Um.. Because Fox explicitly noted that this person was a state employee and union member?
I really don’t think anyone would be complaining quite so loudly if the General had stood up and said “I’m Brig. Gen. Keith H. Kerr and I work for the Clinton campaign. Now here’s my question..” It’s CNN representing these people as undecided Republican voters that raises questions.
I really don’t think anyone would be complaining quite so loudly if the General had stood up and said “I’m Brig. Gen. Keith H. Kerr and I work for the Clinton campaign.
Of course you would be complaining. Perpetual whining is your forte.
“Of course you would be complaining. Perpetual whining is your forte.”
Eeeewwww! Buuuuurrrnn!
Seriously, an unartful dodge that bypassed the easy to understand answer to your previous question.
An inconvenient truth?
slip, it sounds like the whining is coming from your end. What is wrong about people at Republican debate asking questions, and it isn’t stated that they work for Democratic campaigns? Reverse the two parties before you answer – if you can?
Or does the word “ringer” not mean anything to you? I guess not, fairplay is something for the other guy in your world.
The word ringer is very familiar to me, as I’ve encountered them many a time in Chicago softball games. It’s not illegal, it’s not unethical. It’s gamesmanship. Are you telling me that the party of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove is getting its’ shorts in a bind over ringers? What a bunch of pussies you are!
A retired Brig. Gen. need not identify his political affiliation in order to ask a question at a debate. Neither does a mother of two young children need to identify herself as a union member to qualify for asking a question about imported toys coated with lead paint.
Perpetual whining truly is your forte. I stated in another thread that you should be boasting about facing the firing line at CNN, and pointing out that the Dems avoided Fox altogether in Nevada. The comfort you find in puerile screeching must be overwhelming any adult disposition you possess.
It’s always nice when the kids drop by for a visit, isn’t it? Yes, you got us slip, what a big boy you are!
“Neither does a mother of two young children need to identify herself as a union member to qualify for asking a question about imported toys coated with lead paint.”
Actually the question was about a mother of two young children apparently too stupid to read labels and pick the ones that say “USA”. That is what tipped us off she was a union Democrat.
“I stated in another thread that you should be boasting about facing the firing line at CNN..”
What is it with libtards always trying to tell everybody what they should be doing?
Kinda like what questions Republicans should be asking at the Republican debate.
“I stated in another thread that you should be boasting about facing the firing line at CNN, and pointing out that the Dems avoided Fox altogether in Nevada.”
If we considered hostile and disingenuous questions some form of threat, I suppose we would be you preening little retard, but most of us prefer a debate that is concerned with the issues we consider important, with questions that give a candidate a chance to flesh out those positions rather than trip them up and confuse the issue. Although I must admit I would love to see the carnage if they let a group of conservatives and libertarians have a shot at those empty suits the Democrats are running.
I wonder if Anderson and the General are playing Rear Admiral.
I note that schoolyard prima donna John Cole is whining that no one will address his question, a question along the lines of many of CNN’s debate questions. Like CNN, Cole is incapable of recognizing that it is not the question, but when the question is asked. Lefties will have ample time to ask these kinds of setup questions – in the general election. But this is the primaries, and the questions ought to come from real republicans, not false flag plants.
But then neither Cole nor CNN gives a damn about the answers. All they care about is how they can spin anti-GOP, anti-conservative, and anti-right slander. What is not surprising, is that the actual candidates answered the stealth questions honestly – something that Cole’s new found friends on the
brinkleft run away from. Those of us making a stink are not lambasting the candidates, nor the questioners, but rather a network that is in the tank of one party. And as much as the left snivels about the right-leaning of FNC, FNC has never shown such blind partisanship as has CNN.Cole is just a petulant fool, whereas CNN and the rest of the MSM still think they control the facts, and this latest episode just exposes their agenda. Tyrants and useful idiots.
I heard Anderson dresses his dogs up in sweaters when they go for a walk.
If we considered hostile and disingenuous questions some form of threat…
Please tell me what was hostile and disingenuous in asking about trade standards that relate to the importation of toys coated with lead paint? That was too much for your boys to handle?
Mikey NTH@ #11 wants fair play! Sorry, boy, politics is a rough game. Stay at home if you can’t stand getting bruised.
Slip misses Pravda.
CNN will just have to do.
Hey, at least now we know Democrats think DADT and the Confederate flag are going to be BIG in this coming election.
Yes slip, but on the other hand you think that using ringers is an ethical practice, so honestly I think your judgment is a little questionable. I also notice that you continue to insist that the problem is the questioners, and not the objective news media. Is it because your mother didn’t love you enough?
Although the ‘have you stopped beating your wife’ question from the gay general was a bit off-putting.
Yes, it is. Thing is, CNN is supposed to be covering the game, not playing it.
You mean like this, slip? Granted, there’s no boasting, but facing a hostile media is business as usual for those to the left of Joe Biden.
Errr…make that to the right of Joe.
“Please tell me what was hostile and disingenuous in asking about trade standards that relate to the importation of toys coated with lead paint? That was too much for your boys to handle?”
Nothing. But that wasn’t the question.
“What are you going to do to make sure that these kinds of toys don’t find their way into our homes and that we have safe toys that are made in America again and we keep jobs in America.”
That was the question, about toys that are apparently invading this poor woman’s house against her will, and that she has to keep because there just aren’t any toys made in America any more and Oh My Fucking God WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!!!
I would have loved to have heard some of the more sane candidates go after Ron Paul and his protectionist theories, but it ain’t gonna happen with bullshit loaded questions like that.
Absolutely! Isn’t that the real issue here? CNN sets itself up to be the arbiter of presidential debates. Then it serves up softball questions to the Dems, particularly Hillary, and gotcha questions to the Republicans. Even the questioners who weren’t apparent plants would have been good extras in a remake of Deliverance. The questions and answers, and who asks them, aren’t really the issue, it’s the fact that a major news network appears to be using its access to the public to attempt to throw the election.
Not to put too fine a point to it, but imagine the volume of shrieking we’d be hearing from the Democrats and the MSM right now if Karl Rove had managed to plant several questioners in the Democratic debates. Imagine if several of their apparently sympathetic questioners had been wearing “I heart Che” T-shirts. Instead, this isn’t registering at all among the MSM, despite the fact that it is unquestionably “news”.
…imagine the volume of shrieking we’d be hearing from the Democrats and the MSM right now if Karl Rove had managed to plant several questioners in the Democratic debates….
Fat chance of that happening:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/29/AR2007112902165_pf.html
The shrieking or the planting?
I also notice that you continue to insist that the problem is the questioners, and not the “objective” news media.
You have to be kidding…
I do not want what is being passed off as an objective news media. I do not want someone like Joe Klein printing lies in Time about FISA, and then throwing up his hands when confronted with it, saying he has neither the time nor the expertise to dig out the truth.
What the hell are you talking about, Edu Guy? I never said using ringers was ethical. I said it was gamesmanship. Like stealing mastheads from a campaign office and sending out fake press releases, like your boys Segretti and Atwater and Rove did.
You know what a working press does? It does what Giuliani is facing right now with his Shag Fund. That is good journalism. Tracing down credit card receipts and low level money guys. You want journalistic purity at a You Tube debate? That is simply asking a bit much in my opinion. Your candidates did quite well, I think. What the hell are you so upset about?
Hey, let’s all play “I don’t get it”.
I’ll start.
It was just a blowjob! Impeachment? I DON’T GET IT!!
As for Karl Rove planting questions, he didn’t bother with low hanging fruit. He went right to the WH press corps. Jeff Gannon ring a bell?
Jeff Gannon…Jeff Gannon…nope, not a thing.
Oh, wait a minute! Is he Gleen’s lover, the one who bravely sticks up for his lady on the internet using Gleen’s computer?
Well damn, I dunno. Does Jeff Gannon’s junk ring a bell?
Sorry B Moe, I couldn’t help being a bit flip. It’s pretty damn obvious at this point the Her Royal Clintonness’ handlers know damn well she’s not ready to handle even softball questions without serious coaching. She can’t even handle a reporter’s questions and she’s supposed to be ready to face the big issues on a world stage? Gimme a break.
slip is demonstrating aggressive stupidity at its finest.
Why would CNN remove the good general’s speech from their replay?
I mean, it’s just gamemanship. It’s not illegal or unethical.
I DON’T GET IT!
Swede, I don’t get it, either. What is the problem with a retired Brig. Gen. asking a question? You labor under the impression I that I adore CNN.
You want to see good journalism in action?
read.
I have no problem with gamesmanship when your opponent is doing it. When the referess are in on it with the other team, then it gets a little tougher to stomach.
crap.
maybe this time.
your filter is messing with me big time.
What is the problem with a retired Brig. Gen. asking a question?
First off, he retired as Colonel. He was given Brig. Gen. as an honorary title upon retirement.
Second, nobody has a problem with him asking a question. We have a problem with the “has slip stopped fucking goats yet” question that he asked. We have a problem with him being described as an undecided Republican voter when he holds more than one title in the Hillary campaign, and was on a steering committee for Kerry as well.
Your inability to grasp such a simple concept is either intentional, or sad.
JD, will you please point to the questions that you object to, and tell me how they did damage to the candidates? I have to say that John Cole has a point.
I’m starting to think what you really object to is your own base. You don’t like that bible guy at all.
From what I’ve read, Mickey Kaus is the goat fucker.
Again. You are missing the entire fucking point. At this point, it has to be willful and intentional. WLS coined the phrase WIMS – Willful Intentional Malignant Stupidity.
I always get a kick out of people like skippy. The come in here and try to teach us about our party and how we think, knowing little, if anything, about either.
You think that guy was part of the Republican base? A Christian? Not likely.
Yeah slip, I’m just a big joker. Fortunately for me, I can also read.
The word ringer is very familiar to me, as I’ve encountered them many a time in Chicago softball games. It’s not illegal, it’s not unethical.
plus
I never said using ringers was ethical
equals a possible need to see a doctor regarding short term memory loss. On the other hand perhaps ethical and unethical aren’t antonyms in your world.
Nice goalpost moving on the issue of purity. You should be careful though because those things are heavy and you might pull something. Something besides your short term memory and finely tuned sense of ethics that is.
Oh, the bible guy is yours, fellas. Why did Rudy chase after Pat Robertson’s endorsement? To get the bible guy. Why does Mitt cite the bible as Gods’ word, absolute truth? To get the bible guy. Joseph Dearing is all yours.
Education Guy – It is not fair holding them accountable for their own words. How are they supposed to remember their dissembling 10 minutes later?
It will be interesting to see just how many different angles slip will try to defend this from. I see he’s moved on to the predictable ‘but other people do it to’ line of reasoning.
Yeah, slip, that bible guy is yet another great example of how fucked up that whole thing was. Only in CNN’s mind, your mind, and the average moonbat mind would that guy be part of the base, or a representative member of the Republican party. He was a charicature of what they expect people to be.
skippy – When the Dems quit campaigning from the pulpits of churches, maybe you would have a valid point. Sadly, no.
Right. Gray does not exist.
Sure wouldn’t want to argue with that! Have you got a link?
In the mean time, we’re still waiting to know whether you’re personally familiar with Jeff Gannon’s junk, and if so, what was your position? After all, you brought it up.
JD – Like my mother always told me, life isn’t fair, and eat your peas there are starving children in Africa.
BECAUSE OF TEH GHEY PRON COKC OF LIES !!!!1!one!
So to speak..
If the bible guy is a cartoon then what does that make Pat Robertson? And what does that make Rudy for chasing after Pat Robertson?
Right. Gray does not exist.
Well, if CNN claimed it did, you’d pretty much want to check with other sources to be sure.
And what does that make Rudy for chasing after Pat Robertson?
Gay?
Do you have an address? I’ll mail mine to them..
What scares me about the bible guy is that he probably doesn’t take Huck’s answer to heart at all. No allegory for Joey.
Off to read about my Hawks. Damn, it’s good to have my hockey team alive again.
Rudy? And here I thought that was a stick up his butt..
Well, I guess he gave us the “slip”…
skippy – It makes Rudy a politician. It is an outrage, an outrage I tell you, that there are politics in politics.
Did they ever find out who the bible guy was?
His slip was showing …
Obviously before CNN’s time..
The only question is, is slip arguing disingenuously, or is slip dumber than a small bag of pebbles?
‘Cause these arguments is “Teh Stoopid!”
Come on, slip, surely you can do better that an “everybody does it” defense followed by a few minor distractions and attempts at subject changes.
Or, maybe not.
slip mahoney reminds me of a certain willfully ignorant angry guy from Indianapolis.
“Oh, the bible guy is yours, fellas.”
The name Fred Phelps ring a bell?
This where Obama goes to church:
http://www.tucc.org/home.htm
This is their about us page:
http://www.tucc.org/about.htm
This is their mission page:
http://www.tucc.org/mission.htm
I am not a Christian, and I would seriously like to know how someone who comes from such an obviously political religious organization feels about the seperation of Church and State, and how his religious beliefs are going to affect his Presidency in more depth than the typical platitudes? You think that is going to happen? You think any questioner at any debate is going to dare ask challenging questions on this?
(Hint: notice the outline of Africa featured prominently on the cover page, and see how long it takes for me to be branded a racist for pointing it out)
RACIST!
I wanted to be the first.
It’s illuminating that Obama’s church is both theologically conservative and politically provocative. Their choice of language is no accident. Liberation theology is obviously a prominent part of their mission and one wonders if they are willing to take the same path as some other Christian organizations who have been more than willing to make common cause with agnostic socialists/communists for the “greater good” of the peopleses.
Most interesting to me is the use of the word “diaspora,” which comes with a myriad of sharp meaning. The word was originally used by Greeks who chose to move to conquered City/States to help assimilate the population. Later it came to apply to the Jewish “dispersal” during Old Testament times. Wikipedia notes one of the important elements of the use of “diaspora.”
Perhaps at the next Democratic debate someone planted there could ask Obama whether or not he supports his church’s stated position to return to Africa in some manner, shape or form or his views on blacks as a “diaspora” people or whether or not liberation theology should embrace agnostic/atheistic ideologies if the end result is justified. Are these questions fair or even important? Probably not and who’s to say that the senator agrees with every wording or philosophy of his home church?
Nuance: The other white meat.
I have to say that it was hilarious watching the regulars give slippy-the-brain-dead-moonbat a harder reaming than Anderson Cooper ever could. Bet that boy won’t be sitting down for a week.
I also had to chuckle at the repeated references to Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. The only “crimes” either man engaged in (and Atwater was far better at this than Rove) was to publicly point out the truth about the Dim candidates, and boy howdy, if there’s one thing the average Dimocrat hates is having the truth about their guy/gal displayed for public consumption. Hell, Atwater’s been dead now for some 20-odd years, and they are still bitching about him.
Gotta love it…:)
This is what Richelieu at the Weekly Standard had to say about the YouTube questioners at the Republican debate:
“So, a good night for for the lowest denominator, a bad night for the GOP. America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.”
Somebody ought to tell Richelieu that this is the face of the Republican Party these days. Reap what you sow and all. I particularly liked the guy with the bible. He looked liked he was going to whack someone with it.
BTW the gay former general? He may be a Hillary supporter but he apparently hasn’t given her a dime and he’s also a log cabin Republican.
Somebody ought to tell Richelieu that this is the face of the Republican Party these days. Reap what you sow and all.
If this is the face of the Republican party, then there are no Democrats left because they’ve all been aborted. Sinner.
“Somebody ought to tell Richelieu that this is the face of the Republican Party these days.”
And right on cue, that pinhead among dunces Markg8 puts the spotlight on the message CNN was ultimately trying to convey. Thanks, dude.
Here is another example of a phoney, cartoon Republican courtesy of a union Democrat:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/248136.php
markg8 blathered:
Or the mask political bigots keep trying to put over the face of the Republican Party these days.
A kindred spirit for you?