If we Democrats are so devious that we worked out a secret backroom deal with CNN to get plants in the debate questions, wouldn’t we ask better more “gotcha” questions than the ones asked? Cons just don’t like to be questioned outside of pro-con environments like Fox and Rush where the questions are already pre-written and pre-screened.
I have yet to hear a complaint about the substance of the questions asked. Only they were asked by Democrats.
I’m pretty sure there’s a name for a fallacy like that.
I just think it’s too bad the guy had to lie about who he was. It’s wrong on its own, of course, and it creates a stupid distraction and gives ammo to the wingnuts.
Republicans expect bias and sandbagging from CNN, show up anyway and take it.
Democrats expect bias and sandbagging from Fox News, and run away and hide. Then brag about how brave and principled they are.
Pretty clear distinction there…
J.
You would have room to talk if CNN behaved like Fox, like another arm of the party.
Democrats don’t expect “bias” and “sandbagging,” they expect out-and-out character assassination. They expect to have to deal with idiotic memes like “Obama is a secret Muslim!” and “Hillary had Vince Foster killed!”–statements that even an elementary schooler could shoot holes in, but which the Dems have to waste everybody’s time responding to, instead of substantial questions like “Hey, isn’t ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ a stupid policy to keep in force?”
You’re quite right, Oliver. CNN has NOT acted like Fox. For example, I don’t recall Fox ever agreeing to whitewash the slaughter by a genocidal maniac in exchange for “access.” Or accusing US troops of “targeting” journalists for killing.
Fox has a ways to go before it can match CNN’s crimes against journalism…
J.
“If we Democrats are so devious that we worked out a secret backroom deal with CNN to get plants in the debate questions, wouldn’t we ask better more “gotcha” questions than the ones asked? Cons just don’t like to be questioned outside of pro-con environments like Fox and Rush where the questions are already pre-written and pre-screened.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it the Democrats who ran away from Fox with their tails between their legs?
Sorry, Jay Tea, this must be something you picked up in the fever swamp. How do either of the items mentioned have anything to do with the Democratic Party or anything associated with liberal causes?
Nope, z. In fact, I never said that the Democrats were behind the CNN sandbagging, just CNN. And Oliver compared CNN and Fox, I was just expounding on the comparison.
J.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it the Democrats who ran away from Fox with their tails between their legs?
No. They refused to debate on Fox for the same reason that Republicans refused to debate for hispanic or African-American groups. Because they aren’t interested in appealing to that particular demographic. Republicans don’t care about hispanics (unless it’s booting them out of the country) or black people. Democrats don’t care about appealing to Fox’s audience of racist, xenophobic religious fundamentalists. The base will never vote for any Democrat anyway.
Fox has a ways to go before it can match CNN’s crimes against journalism…
That’s only because Fox News doesn’t actually practice journalism. They are a propaganda arm of the Republican party.
Megamoze:
You might want to Google up “Black Congressional Caucus” and see what happened to the debates they planned to co-sponsor with Fox News…
J.
Jay, that’s a pathetic dodge.
Fox News has in just the last month claimed that Obama is Muslim and has “patriotism problems,” has claimed Hillary is has threatened her staff and had intimidated debate moderators. These are only the more blatant lies. There are at least a hundred other misstatements, distortions and dodges.
These are not issues about some weird threat of which you accuse CNN but are specific political issues about specific Democratic figures. Where is the equivalent Republican slander and libel on CNN?
“Weird threat?” No, I just cited things freely admitted to by Eason Jordan. He admitted covering up for Saddam in an article he wrote for the New York Times on April 11, 2003. In November of 2004, at the News Xchange conference in Portugal, he said the US military in Iraq was kidnapping and torturing Arabic journalists. And in January 2005, at the Davos World Economic Forum, he said that American forces were targeting journalists in Iraq for assassination.
Jordan, if you don’t recall, was CNN’s Chief News Executive during all these incidents. it took the exposure of all three of these to finally lead to his resignation.
THAT is the sort of thing that should cost CNN any shred of respectability and claim to be a serious journalistic outlet.
J.
Still no problems with the substance of the questions? So the debate is about how pro-democrat CNN is vs. how pro-Republican Fox news is? CNN varies in its bias depending on the time of day. FOx is constant. Remember this is the network that named congressional page scandal poster boy, Rep Foley as a democrat.
Get real. Apparently the Republican debate was a failure and you guys are looking for excuses. No one has expressed a problem with the actual questions, don’t blame the questioner if the response leaves you wanting.
Jordan, if you don’t recall, was CNN’s Chief News Executive during all these incidents. it took the exposure of all three of these to finally lead to his resignation.
Whereas when Fox News execs, reporters, and personnel are caught in their blatant falsehoods they don’t have the decency to tender their own resignations–rather, they turn it into a symposium on how Librul the Media must be if it dares to point out that Fox News is full of lies, which clearly shows that there’s a bias against Fox News.
Funny, I thought the discussion was on CNN’s latest example of journalistic malpractice. You wanna stand around in your circle-jerk about how mean and nasty Fox News is, feel free. CNN has an actual body count — starting with all those Iraqis.
J.
So, Eason Jordan not reporting certain stories so that his sources and personnel would not be subject to retaliation by Iraqi secret police makes him and CNN somehow responsible for those deaths that they had nothing to do with? OK.
Incidently, did a verified transcript, audio or video record of him accusing the US of targeting journalists ever come out?
“Republicans expect bias and sandbagging from CNN, show up anyway and take it.”
This is a fucking lie. You have shown no evidence that CNN treated the Republicans and differently than they did the Democrats.
“Nope, z. In fact, I never said that the Democrats were behind the CNN sandbagging, just CNN.”
And you still haven’t proven that claim, sub-human.
“Funny, I thought the discussion was on CNN’s latest example of journalistic malpractice. You wanna stand around in your circle-jerk about how mean and nasty Fox News is, feel free. CNN has an actual body count — starting with all those Iraqis.”
Hey asshole, YOU brought up FOX. Are you that fucking stupid that you forgot?
midderpidge says …
“So the debate is about how pro-democrat CNN is vs. how pro-Republican Fox news is?”
They don’t call it Clinton News Network for nothing.
“CNN varies in its bias depending on the time of day. FOx is constant.”
Even if this were true … it’s okay for CNN to be biased sometimes? LOL.
“Remember this is the network that named congressional page scandal poster boy, Rep Foley as a democrat.”
Um, CNN accidentally labeled Michael Steele a Democrat. That’s not racist or anything. (image: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/02/cnn-mis-labels-michael-steele-as-a-democrat/)
“Get real. Apparently the Republican debate was a failure and you guys are looking for excuses.”
Most watched debate thus far.
“No one has expressed a problem with the actual questions, don’t blame the questioner if the response leaves you wanting.”
That’s not the point. The point is Democrat plants asked Republicans questions. I don’t recall any Republican plants asking Democrats any questions at their debate.
No, the point is STILL that Republicans are so flustered by reasonable questions that their best response is to attack the purveyors of those questions for being “biased” against them.
The question could have been randomly typed by a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters, and the Republicans would be frothing at the mouth trying to prove that monkeys are a species with a liberal bias. (”That must be why the monkeys keep trying to tell us we evolved from them! Don’t you see? It all fits!”)
Anybody here care to answer the substance of the questions, or would they just care to whine about who asked them?
“No, the point is STILL that Republicans are so flustered by reasonable questions that their best response is to attack the purveyors of those questions for being “biased” against them.”
Again, no. Then why did CNN have to turn to Democratic plants to ask these questions? Hmm.
“Again, no. Then why did CNN have to turn to Democratic plants to ask these questions? Hmm.”
Perhaps not enough Republicans sent in questions.
One of the national Republican committees held a contest asking for commercials, which when they be voted on and the winner could get theirs used on TV.
They got five submissions.
FIVE.
Yeah, Spider, some of the Republicans were a little flustered when they were sandbagged by CNN. How did the Democrats handle facing a similar situation?
Oh, yeah, they didn’t face a similar situation. CNN didn’t make sure a full quarter of the questioners were activists from the opposing parties.
My point in bringing up Fox was to point out that Fox might have done the same. Or might not. We won’t know; the Democrats ran whining at the mere thought of the big, scary network.
Can’t face Fox News, but they’re ready to face world leaders and groups and nations that have our worst interests at heart? Yeah, I can buy that.
J.
“CNN didn’t make sure a full quarter of the questioners were activists from the opposing parties.”
More fucking lies.
You don’t know how many Republicans ask questions at the YouTube debate, or even submitted questions, you can not make this claim.
You are a fucking liar.
“My point in bringing up Fox was…”
It doesn’t fucking matter what your point was. YOU were the one who brought them up, then YOU started complaining that we were talking about them.
“Can’t face Fox News, but they’re ready to face world leaders and groups and nations that have our worst interests at heart? Yeah, I can buy that.”
Nice right-wing talking point. Another reason why you are sub-human. Too stupid to think for yourself.
“Can’t face Fox News, but they’re ready to face world leaders and groups and nations that have our worst interests at heart? Yeah, I can buy that.”
So your contention in the pissing contest here is that Democrats refused to acknowledge a network that routinely reports bald-faced lies about them (somebody please, please try to defend the “Obama is a SEEEECRET MOOOSLIM” story), while Republicans are oh so braver because they dared face a hostile environment…and then devolved into whining three year-olds about what a hostile environment it was.
Okay, I’m sold too.
Jay Tea is obviously and deliberately mistaken, the Dems faced the exact situation the Republicans did and didn’t whine about it. They faced the same format, with the same style questions exploring different aspects of issues that matter to primary voters. That is the comparison, not the Fox debate that didn’t happen.
If you want to compare the Fox debate the democrats skipped, a better comparison is to the minority sponsored debates the Republican candidates skipped. The democrats didn’t want the Republican talking point biased questions and the Republicans didn’t want to address minority issues.
SpiderJ, you’re quite right about the “Secret Moooslim” crap against Obama. I’ve said as much on several occasions. And those who are pushing the story are contemptible, as well as incredibly stupid.
Such as CNN.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019011.php
And yes, the Democrats faced a YouTube/CNN debate. But their CNN-screened questions were not stuffed with readily-identifiable activists and supporters of the other party. And only one questioner was brought in to repeat and expound upon their point, then critique the answers.
And that one questioner was an advisor to both Hillary Clinton’s campaign and John Kerry’s.
As I said, seven of the eight CNN-planted questions were pretty good. A couple were great. It’s just a shame that CNN didn’t apply the same standards to both debates. I’d have enjoyed seeing some of the Democrats handle some hardballs from some right-wingers, questions such as “can you explain the difference between a legal immigrant and an illegal one, and how would you encourage more legal immigration and less illegal immigration if you reduce or eliminate the legal penalties for it?” or “How do you reconcile your opposition for the death penalty in all cases, yet support the right of a mother to destroy her fetus?” (As someone who’s both pro-choice and pro-capital punishment, I think I’d enjoy seeing the candidates squirm on that one anyway.)
As I said, CNN’s basic idea here is interesting — when one party holds a debate, bring in a few people from the opposition party to toss some bombs to shake things up.
The problems with CNN were in the execution. They didn’t own up (and still haven’t owned up) to doing it, and they only did it to one side.
But I know the mantra around these parts: IOKIYAR — It’s OK If You’re Attacking Republicans.
J.
“But their CNN-screened questions were not stuffed with readily-identifiable activists and supporters of the other party.”
You have no evidence to make this claim. It is a fucking lie.
Do you think if you repeat it enough, we will assume you have done your research and let it slide?
Strowbridge, you really are a pottymouth. Have you thought about having that checked into? I hear there’s a pill that does something about that. Or maybe it was a bar of soap.
I said “readily-identifiable.” Because if they were half as readily identifiable as the plants CNN used, they would have been identified by now. Say, by Googling their name. Or clicking on their YouTube profile and seeing them in a Mitt Romney T-Shirt. Or finding out that they have a blog at Huckabee’s site.
For the record, though, I didn’t do any research on the questioners on the GOP side, either. I just saw what others reported, and confirmed it for myself.
As I said, it wasn’t the deed itself that was so bad. It was the denial and the double standard.
In fact, I’m thinking of writing more about the whole thing over at Wizbang, taking a good look at the actual questions. As I said, they were good questions, and I think there could be some decent discussions about them.
Plus, it’ll keep the story fresh for a bit longer.
J.
Spin it. You still haven’t addressed any problem with the substance of the questions. Only that one guy who identifies himself as a log cabin Republican lent his name (rank in particular) to a panel on Gay and Lesbian issues for a democratic candidate. You have yet to raise any objection to his actual question, it certainly gave the candidates an opportunity to flash their anti-gay credentials (except Romney who had trouble running away from his earlier pro-gay position).
You admit you are just bitching without facts. Why do you even bother to comment. Here is the gist of the republican debate questions with my take on how Republican (R-RRRRR) neutral (n) or Democratic (D-DDDDDD).
1. Rudy G’s sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. RRRR
2. Veto amnesty legislation? RRRRR
3. Guest Worker Programs. RR
4.Immigrant’s Tuition. RRRR
5. Some Ron Paul conspiracy thing. RR
6. National Debt and spending control. N
7. “Fair Tax”. RRRRR
8. What 3 programs to cut … RRRR
9. Farm subsidies to big business. N
10. Safe toys from CHina. D
11. Gun Control RRRR
12. Gun Control RRRR
13. Your gun collection RRRR
14. Black on Black crime. DDDDD
15. Criminal Penalties if abortion were illegal. RR
16. Sign legislation overturning RvW. RRRRR
17. Death Penalty, WWJD? R
18. Bible- literal truth? RRRR
19. Repairing image of America Muslim World. DDDD
20. McCain as most expert on Waterboarding. R
21. Long term Occupation of Iraq. RRRRR
22. Rudy 9-11, 9-11, 9-11. R
23. Vice President’s Power. N
24. Gays in military. DD
25. Log Cabin Republicans. D
26. Defecit, Trust fund. R
27. Mars, Bithches! DD
28. Conservative Black Issues. RRRR
29. Infrastructure, N
30. Ron Paul Independent? D
31. Guiliani Red Sox fan? Worthless
That’s alot of bias, huh?
Jay Tea: “Strowbridge, you really are a pottymouth. Have you thought about having that checked into? I hear there’s a pill that does something about that. Or maybe it was a bar of soap.”
Jay Tea, you really are a prude. Have you thought about fucking off?
“I said “readily-identifiable.” Because if they were half as readily identifiable as the plants CNN used, they would have been identified by now.”
Unless no one has bothered to check. And you’ve admitted you didn’t bother to check.
You can’t claim bias without checking both sides.
“Plus, it’ll keep the story fresh for a bit longer.”
Was this ever a real story?
“25. Log Cabin Republicans. D”
Log Cabin Republicans is a Democratic issue?
I gave it a weak D rating based on the phrasing of the question, particularly: “I’d like to ask all the candidates if they accept the support of the Log Cabin Republicans…”. To me that places a negative connotation to the question, gays don’t feel welcome in the republican party, would you accept them?’. Much like the infamous Kerr question, only the negative phrasing of the question merits the two DDs, it is actually a neutral issue. I mean it’s just my take on the questions. For instance, I ranked the Vice Presidential power question as neutral. Considering it relates directly to Bush/Cheney, it could easily go RR or RRR, but I felt the phrasing was neutral and could easily have been asked in the Democratic debate.
Good reasoning. I bow to your well thought out labeling.
Here are the democratic debate question ratings.
1.Talk don’t count, will you act. N
2.Kucinich better for America than Hillary/Obama. DDD stupid question
3.Define “liberal”. DDDDD
4.What republican could be your running mate? RRRR
5.Slavery Reparations. DDDD
6.Katrina, poverty response. DDD
7.Obama/Clinton not black/feminine enough. D
8.Gay Marriage. DD
9.Gay Marriage/Religion. DDDD
10.Darfur. D
11.How can we pull out of Iraq. RR
12.Why no end to Iraq War yet. DDD
13.Gravel, Vietnam deaths in vain. R
14.Women register for draft. N
15.Hillary as woman dealing with Muslim states. RRR
16.Meet with Syria, Iran, NKorea etc. N
17.When out of Iraq/ Memebers of family in military. DDDDD/N
18.Favorite Teacher/why? N
19.No child left behind. DD
20.Your kids, Public or Private schools. N. Cooper injects bias. R
21.Sex education and you. DDD
22.What about AL? D, useless
23.Global warming. DDD
24.Energy Reduction. DD
25.Nuclear Power? N
26.Standardized voting. D
27.Would you work for minimum wage. N
28. Social Security. R
29. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, raise taxes or cut benefits. RR
30.Taxes, College. N
31.Raise taxes? RRRRR
32. Healthc Care. N
33. Health care Plans undocumented workers. DD
34.Do we need a change of name in office? D
35. liberty, in God we trust.” R
36.Religion, Secular. DD
37. Gun Control. RR
38.What do you like/dislike about other candidate. N