The gay general at the CNN/YouTube debate has turned into a major controversy (lol) among Republicans who are shocked and confused to discover that the general public includes people across the political spectrum. Here are some excerpts in the relevant threads at Politico.com:
I really question Republican Candidates agreeing to go on CNN for their debates especially after incident like last night where the questioners turn up to be Clinton and Obama supporters instead of supposedly Conservative thinkers.
[...]
At least six of the questioners were people with ties or allegiences to Democratic Party politicians, candidates, and activist groups.
Heavens no, CNN allowed Democrats to ask questions too? Somebody get Michelle Malkin on the Bat phone!
But the ISSUE is as to CNN's credibility. They presented this debate as being one to allow the public to pose via online video questions to the GOP candidates. Instead, they appear to have produced a work of theatre with a cast of predictable, sufficiently Liberal posers functioning as "questioners."
So...liberals who ask questions are not "questioners" but are merely posing as questioners...and "the public" does not include those liberals. Curious.
Perhaps the GOP has gotten a little too used to pre-screened Town Hall meetings where a "No Blood for Oil" bumper-sticker gets you ejected.
There are legitimate complaints to be made about the CNN/YouTube debate; mainly that most of the questions were stupid and uninformative, designed to trip up candidates for gotcha moments or to allow them to mindlessly pander, with a dose of pure comedy mixed in. The selection process appears designed to be maximally insulting to thinking Americans or the product of drunken monkeys with dartboards.
That questions from the general public included questions from non-Republicans is not a legitimate complaint, it is an inane and incoherent one.
A slightly more sophisticated complaint is that questions from skeptics are acceptable but that Democrats didn't receive any in their parallel debate. For your reading pleasure I will now reproduce all the questions from the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate that appear to be Republican-influenced or otherwise gotcha questions:
I have a question for Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton, how would you define the word "liberal?" And would you use this word to describe yourself? Thank you.
My question is for Mike Gravel. In one of the previous debates you said something along the lines of the entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain. How do you expect to win in a country where probably a pretty large chunk of the people voting disagree with that statement and might very well be offended by it? I'd like to know if you plan to defend that statement, or if you're just going to flip-flop.
This guy probably wasn't a Gravel fan. I'm just guessing here though.
This here question's for all you candidates. Mainstream media seems awfully interested in old Al Gore these days. Is he losing weight? What's it say in his book? Is he still worried about all the ice? They interpret all these as signs that he may or may not run. They really want to know if Al Gore's going to run again. Yes. Well, what we want to know is does that hurt you-all's feelings?
This guy made fun of the candidates and Al Gore at the same time. Bonus points. The Gravel guy must have been embarrassed by this clever upstaging.
(SINGING) Pay taxes on my clothes and food, pay taxes on my place, pay taxes on my moisturizer, I pay taxes on my weights. I pay taxes on my land. Every year, y'all make me pay. I pay tax on this guitar so I can sing for you today. My taxes put some kids in college I can't afford to send myself. Now, tell me, if you were elected president, what would you do to help? Also, I got a parking ticket last week. Could one of y'all pardon me?
This guy would probably make a better living if he ditched the singer/songwriter gig, it's just not working.
My name is Marcus Benson from Minneapolis. And I'd like to know, if the Democrats come into office, are my taxes going to rise like usually they do when a Democrats gets into office?
Because one question on Democrats overtaxing people clearly wasn't enough. I suspect Marcus may be a "plant" and not actually a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.
Hi. My name is Chris Nolan and I'm a Democratic precinct committeeman from Mundelein, Illinois. And my question is for Hillary Clinton.
With Bush, Clinton, and Bush again serving as the last three presidents, how would electing you, a Clinton, constitute the type of change in Washington so many people in the heartland are yearning for, and what your campaign has been talking about?
I was also wondering if any of the other candidates had a problem with the same two families being in charge of the executive branch of government for 28 consecutive years, if Hillary Clinton were to potentially be elected and then re-elected.
Clearly a huge Clinton fan.
Hi, I'm Zenne Abraham in Oakland, California. The cathedral behind me is the perfect backdrop for this question. This quarter reads "United States of America." And when I turn it over, you find that it reads "liberty, in God we trust." What do those words mean to you? Thank you.
I already used the "It's a Trap" picture. I got nothing.
Good evening, America. My name is Jered Townsend from Clio, Michigan.
To all the candidates, tell me your position on gun control, as myself and other Americans really want to know if our babies are safe.
This is my baby, purchased under the 1994 gun ban. Please tell me your views.
That's funny. See the subtle wordplay at work? You're all like "great, this guy just lobbed me a softball" but then he's all like "psych!!! I call my gun my baby 'cause I'm craaaazy!"
I'm going to make yet another indefensible guess that this was sort of a trap question and that the questioner wasn't totally down with the typical Democratic position on guns.
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By my count that's eight questions that were hostile to (at least some) Democrats, and most of those also exhibited a clear Republican mindset. Certainly the "liberal" question, the two taxation questions, the gun question and the Gore question at least. So Republicans please stop whining about how some mean old Democrats asked you some trick questions while Democrats got off easy. You got your trick questions in as well.
If you want to complain that the CNN/YouTube debates were vapid go right ahead, I'm right there with you. But the complaint that the debates were biased against Republicans because Democrats got to ask some questions is laughable on every level; open to the general public is the entire premise of the debates and the Democrats were on the receiving end as well.
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