November 17, 2007
There's a great deal of controversy brewing concerning implications that CNN not only stocked the audience at Thursday's Democrat Presidential debate,
......but also controlled the questions attendees asked.......
So much for Wolf Blitzer not caving into pressure from the Clinton campaign.
It looks like all six "undecided voters" set up to ask questions at the debate were plants.
One of the most delicious incidents from the debate was reported Friday by Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic magazine blog
Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton...
.....whether she preferred "diamonds or pearls" at the debate
wrote on her MySpace page
....that CNN forced her to ask the question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository....
"Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN," Luisa writes.
"I was asked to submit questions including "lighthearted/fun" questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship.
For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance."
Luisa wrote at MySpace:
CNN ran out of time and used me to "close" the debate with the pearls/diamonds question. Seconds later this girl comes up to me and says, "you gave our school a bad reputation.' Well, I had to explain to her that every question from the audience was pre-planned and censored.
.....Fascinating
Yet, this story gets more delicious, for according to CNN's transcript of the debate, Luisa's real name is Maria Parra Sandoval
A reader at Dan Riehl's Riehl World View accurately pointed out that Parra-Sandoval used to be an intern for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada).
Yet, that wasn't the only planted audience member/questioner Thursday evening.
LaShannon Spencer, who was identified as a member of the First African Methodist Church, asked the question near the top of the 10 pm Eastern hour. She highlighted how health care and the Iraq war had, in her view, dominated the questions during past debates.
.....Would that be the same LaShannon Spencer who is, or at least was the political director of the Democrat Party of Arkansas?....
She certainly didn't sound too undecided back in 2003 - though I suppose she could be an undecided voter as billed by CNN.
Lashannon Spencer, political director for the Arkansas Democratic Party, commented on her favorite part of Clinton's book.
From the CNN transcript:
MALVEAUX: Our next questions is -- Khalid Khan, if you would please stand for a moment. You and I spoke very briefly, and you said you have some concerns about racial profiling.
KHALID KHAN: Yes, I do. I am an American citizen and have been profiled all the time at the airport. Since 9/11, hundreds of thousands of Americans have been profiled. And, you know, it is like a harassment.
KHAN: My question is that -- our civil liberties have been taken away from us. What are you going to do to protect Americans from this kind of harassment?
.....OK, I have no way of knowing the extent to which Mr. Khan has been subjected to profiling....
But he is not an ordinary citizen.
....For years he has been a prominent Muslim leader -- the president of the Islamic Society of Nevada....
who has hosted conferences like this one (which included the controversial Muzzamil Siddiqi), and the first sentence in a piece in the LA Times described him as "a stalwart among Las Vegas Muslims."
....Nor, as it turns out, is Khalid Khan a stranger to CNN....
From the transcript of a show last year called "keeping the faith in Sin City -- a surprising look at how Muslims manage to live and work under the glitz, greed and sex in Las Vegas.":
ZAHN: Our special hour tonight continues with a "Top Story" out of Las Vegas, where Muslim prayer rugs and the Las Vegas Strip collide, and collide in a big way.
ROWLANDS: The president of the Islamic Society here estimates, there are 14,000 Muslims living in Las Vegas, trying to follow the stringent rules of Islam in Sin City.
KHALID KHAN, PRESIDENT, ISLAMIC SOCIETY: It is a challenge to them. It is a challenge, that they see all these temptation around them, and, still, they just ignore them.
...Add it all up, and CNN stocked the questionning members of the audience with....
-- at the very least...
-- a former intern for Sen. Reid, a former head of the Arkansas Democrat Party, and a prominent Muslim leader.
Honestly, folks, the Democrats made a huge stink about not appearing in any debate sponsored by Fox News for fear of its biases.
Yet, it seems a metaphysical certitude that FNC, with all the focus upon it, wouldn't have dared exhibit such obvious partiality.
In fact, just imagine the uproar that would have emanated from press members if Fox had employed such shenanigans.
This likely would have been the lead story of all three broadcast network news programs Friday, as well as featured every hour on the hour at CNN and MSNBC.
Of course, maybe this explains why the Democrats refused the FNC debates in the first place....
which would be an interesting story for a news magazine like "60 Minutes," "Dateline," or "20/20" if they weren't all vested in the same hypocrisy.
......Liberal media bias? What liberal media bias?
As an aside...
I want to congratulate and applaud the work of the bloggers mentioned in this report.
As much as the legacy media disingenuously position themselves as advocates of the people and free speech...
the new media continue to be the only ones demonstrating democratic principles our Founding Fathers would be in any way proud of.
*****Update:
As Doug Ross reports here, it seems that all six of the supposed "undecided voters" set up to ask questions at Thursday's debate were plants!
Will this be discussed in detail on tomorrow's political talks shows, or totally ignored?
—Noel Sheppard |
