CNN/YouTube Debate Debacle

I'm making an exception to custom by posting a few national news-related items today. The following about the CNN/YouTube Republican debate are from today's Political Diary (OpinionJournal.com's daily political news digest. It is an awesome service and costs only $3.95 a month).

PD points out how NPR's Mara Liasson viewed the debate:

"I think CNN does itself a great disservice when it doesn't apply the exact same kind of criteria to both debates. I covered both of them. In the Democratic debate, I don't think there were any questions that were clearly coming from, you know, a Republican point of view. They were generally sympathetic. They were about global warming and health care and education, all kind of Democratic issues. They weren't challenging them. There was one kind anti-tax question, I think, but they weren't challenging the basic principles of the Democratic Party. There were lots of questions last night [at the GOP debate] that were. I think the question about the Bible was mocking. I think one of the abortion questions was clearly not from someone who was pro-life"

And as John Fund reports, it turns out a large percentage of CNN's "undecided voters" posing video questions were actually partisan activists:

Last week, CNN's Anderson Cooper quipped in an interview with Townhall.com that "campaign operatives are people too" and CNN wasn't worried if political partisans posed questions at the GOP debate he'd be moderating the following Wednesday. "We don't investigate the background of people asking questions [by submitting video clips]. It's not our job," he said.
 
Yet now CNN's logo has egg splattered all over it as the network scrambles to explain how a co-chair of Hillary Clinton's veterans' committee was allowed to ask a video question on gays in the military at Wednesday's debate. The questioner, retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr, was flown at network expense from California to the debate site in Florida so he could repeat his question to the candidates in person. CNN claims it verified retired Brig. Gen. Kerr's military status and checked his campaign contribution records, contradicting Mr. Cooper's blasi attitudes. But the network still somehow missed his obvious connection to the Hillary campaign which any Google search would have turned up.
 
CNN later airbrushed Mr. Kerr's question out of its rebroadcast of the debate, indicating that it apparently doesn't think "campaign operatives" are legitimate questioners at the network's debates.
 
Now it appears that an amazing number of partisan figures posed many of the 30 questions at the GOP debate while pretending to be CNN's advertised "undecided voters." Yasmin from Huntsville, Alabama turns out to be a former intern with the Council on American Islamic Relations, a group highly critical of Republicans. Blogger Michelle Malkin has identified other plants, including declared Obama supporter David Cercone, who asked a question about the pro-gay Log Cabin Republicans. A questioner who asked a hostile question about the pro-life views of GOP candidates turned out to be a diehard John Edwards supporter (and a slobbering online fan of Mr. Cooper). Yet another "plant" was LeeAnn Anderson, an aide to Leo Gerard, president of the American Steel Workers Union and a prominent Edwards backer.
 
It seems more "plants" are being uprooted with each passing day. Nearly one-third of the questioners seem to have some ties to Democratic causes or candidates. Another questioner worked with Democratic Senator Dick Durbin's staff. A former intern with Democratic Rep. Jane Harman asked a question about farm subsidies. A questioner who purported to be a Ron Paul supporter turns out to be a Bill Richardson volunteer. David McMillan, a TV writer from Los Angeles, turns out to have several paeans to John Edwards on his YouTube page and has attended Barack Obama fundraisers.
 
Given CNN's professed goal to have "ordinary Americans" ask questions at its GOP debate, how odd that so many of the video questioners selected by CNN turned out to be not just partisan Democrats, but actively hostile to the GOP's messages and candidates.

Comments

[Allan Bartlett]

I liked the You Tube format a lot where regular people get to ask questions of the candidates, but I was dumbfounded how CNN could let a bunch of Democrat hacks infiltrate the GOP debate like they did.

[Lurk]

It's equally dumbfounding that they didn't care about getting caught and drawing the flak they have -- Presidential campaigns are hardball -- especially this one. Does the Clinton New Network beleive nobody's out there Googling these people when they're asking obviously Dem-slanted questions? Hell, A. Cooper even acknowledged on air that they were being challenged.

[killerjoe]

How can anyone be dumbfounded, or shocked, with the outcome of the debates? It's called the clinton news network, for a reason. The only thing that surprises me is the amount of flack that Repubs. are putting up. The dems are sitting back and laughing all the way to the election. Maybe if Thompson,Romney, and the others got off their asses, and said something, it would make a difference. As it stands now, it's business as usual.

[The Mechanical Eye]

Shame, shame.

Were the Republican candidates' responses so bad that nearly every GOP-friendly website I know is choosing to spend its time huffing how much the whole thing wasn't FAIR?

It lets you ignore how vapid and deeply prejudiced the answer to the brigadier general's questions were.

That 28 percent approval rating for the President is reflected by the general public's attitude toward the GOP front-runners. Whining that everyone's a "plant" makes you look like losers.

DU

[Jubal]

You're missing the point. CNN/YouTube advertised this as a debate with video questions from "undecided voters." Now it turns out that was largely a crock, and it only took bloggers and reporters a few days to figure out what CNN could and should have been able to.

CNN paid for a Hillary campaign activist to come to New York, put him up at a hotel and put him in the audience to ask a question. It takes a few seconds on Google to fgure out the general isn't some "undecided voters." The subject of his question is beside the point. This is about CNN's credibility as a news organization.

[killerjoe]

Eye; Would that have anything to do with congress's lower than the POTUS. Probubly not. Maybe Karl Rove did it. Shame is a funny word. Maybe if cnn/youtube, and the dems had a little, well thats just crazy thinking. Never mind.

[Christopher H.]

Jubal, missing the point is America's favorite pastime.

[Bladerunner]

Oh please.....look, I am with you about CNN flying General Kerr out for the show----totally unprofessional and CNN has admitted it was a mistake..Someone ought to be disciplined for that boner.

But as for the rest, tell your troubles to Jesus because the chaplin has gone ashore. I didn't hear any of you Reds complaining during the Democratic debate when John McAlpin(whose MYSpace page features pictures of Rudy Giuliani)asked Hillary Clinton how she thought she would be taken seriously by Arab or Muslim countries. No cries of outrage from you Reds about the guy who demanded to know when a Democrat was elected president if taxes would rise "like they usually do when a Democrat comes in office." Nary a peep from Red County when a someone took a question right out of the Rove playbook and asked candidates to choose between raising taxes or cutting benefits in order to save social security. And probably a lot of high fives in Red County when the Mighigan guy who said he had voted for Bush TWICE asked the 2nd Amendment challenged Democrats(except Richardson)if they would protect his "baby"--the assault rifle he cradled. Mara Liasson must have had a senior moment to have forgotten the first debate like that.

So stop whining because some Democrats saw those Republican talking points pop up in a Democratic debate and decided to return the fire. You guys got beat at your own game and don't like it. Tough.

[Maytag]

Jubal,
You have a lot of Schroeder in you...everything has a spin to it (as long as it spins your way). I'm going to start calling you Maytag.

[Jubal]

BR:

I didn't see the CNN/YouTube Demo debate, so it's a little hard for me to express any outrage. The only thing I remember about it in terms of coverage was the snowman/global warming video question. Sorry.

Maytag:

You need to call that lonely repairman to fix your cognitive centers. Spin? I posted the viewpoints of two Beltway pundits. How is that "my spin"?

[Bladerunner]

Jubal--Fair enough. There was more cross-polinization in the GOP debate then the Dem one but both had the infiltrators. I just think there was more in the GOP debate because it went second and the Dems picked up that CNN was not filtering too well. Had the order been reversed so would the numbers. Its less about Clinton News Network and more about doing this format for the first time and needing to work out the kinks. But there is no excuse for flying the General out. A real Dan Rather moment.

Sorry about the Servite loss. God's pretty non-partisan about not heeding prayers I guess.