PrintNovember 29, 2007
CNN Puts on GOP Debate - Mostly
Well, at least the candidates were all probably Republicans.
As for the questioners, not by a long shot. No less than 4 of the YouTube videos featured as questions on last night's CNN Republican debate were from Democratic supporters or party activists.
Shortly after the debate ended, it was revealed that the retired General who asked a question about gays in the military was no disinterested or undecided voter. General Keith Kerr is actually on Hillary Clinton's LGBT Steering Committee and was a John Kerry supporter in 2002.
AT contributor Ethel Fenig snorts that we shoud "expect another denial from the Clinton campaign that oh no, we don't use audience plants. Oh really?"
"Oh really" indeed. In addition to Kerr, there were several other Democrats who got to ask a question at the Republican debate last night:
As for the questioners, not by a long shot. No less than 4 of the YouTube videos featured as questions on last night's CNN Republican debate were from Democratic supporters or party activists.
Shortly after the debate ended, it was revealed that the retired General who asked a question about gays in the military was no disinterested or undecided voter. General Keith Kerr is actually on Hillary Clinton's LGBT Steering Committee and was a John Kerry supporter in 2002.
AT contributor Ethel Fenig snorts that we shoud "expect another denial from the Clinton campaign that oh no, we don't use audience plants. Oh really?"
"Oh really" indeed. In addition to Kerr, there were several other Democrats who got to ask a question at the Republican debate last night:
There’s the Log Cabin Republican, David Cercone, whose YouTube page clearly identifies him as an Obama supporter, asking a question about gay marriage. There’s the petite young girl asking an abortion question whose YouTube profile shows her proudly sporting a “John Edwards ‘08” T-shirt.All of these associations with Democrats were ferreted out by bloggers within minutes of the end of the debate.
And the mother with two kids asking who’s going to protect her kids from products that contain lead is actually an American Steel Worker union activist – an aide to the union president Leo Gerard and a John Edwards booster.
Of course, this begs the question that if bloggers sitting in their pajamas could find these connections to the Democratic party so quickly, what happened to the army of fact checkers and editors at CNN who were supposed to vet the questioners in the first place?
There's barely a word about all this from the MSM this morning. Fox carried a short piece on Kerr but beyond that, not a word spoken against CNN for using Democratic plants to ask questions at a Republican debate.
Can you imagine the outcry if Republicans had been caught asking questions of Democrats at one of their debates?
As for the debate itself, a good wrap up can be found here. Trannscript here.
