I’m shocked, aren’t you?
Some fun with the latest Democratic presidential debate. In a nutshell, CNN’s six “undecided voters” were:
A Democratic Party bigwig
An antiwar activist
A Union official
An Islamic leader
A Harry Reid staffer
A radical Chicano separatist
Dave - the Infidel Sage
gurusteve
E the Wise
Andre the Defiant
hairybeast
thompaine
This story has been around for a while and even looked as if it might have ‘legs’, but the MSM have been relentless in their disinterest, so it has died. Most likely the other major news/commentary news outlets are covering their own butts.
Many in the Blogosphere have commented that - in addition to the canned nature of these questions, the candidate responses seemed very quick and scripty as well. It is almost as if they knew what the questions were going to be before they were asked.
Fresh off her previous debate debacle Hilary needed a good performance and CNN made sure she got it.The Beast is suprised the other candidates didn’t complain, but they didn’t - probably because they can’t afford to alienate CNN.
Found her Twin, too!
Holy crap! You’d almost think that political events were staged! Not like the open forums held by the right. Right?
I condemn them both. I’ll be damned if I think our side needs a buffer outside of simply keeping out people to ask why they want to kill babies.
But yeah, the media REALLY wants Hillary to win, CNN in particular. It just goes to show you how dumb Hillary supporters think that the rest of us are.
Did Chris Matthews hold a similar love-in for the Republicans when NBC hosted a debate? The Beast agrees, however, that when CNN hosts a political event it’s the same as a partisan forum — only for the Left.
At least we now know why the Dems won’t debate on Fox News - they have no pet reporters over there.
Hilary actually IS taking some heat from fellow Dems for this. Here’s a quote from Obama campaign spokesman, Bill Burton re - her shifting position on driver’s licenses for illegal aliens:
“When it takes two weeks and six different positions to answer one question on immigration, it’s easier to understand why the Clinton campaign would rather plant their questions than answer them“
As well she should. Her campaign is full of individuals alternately delusional and corrupt. But come on, the Republicans are handed softball questions all the time. Have you actually watched one of their debates? When was the last time the Republicans were pressed on anything? When was the last time one was asked something that legitimately seemed to throw them?
Neither party’s debates have been truly impressive in a very long time. That’s why the YouTube debate was a great idea and why I enjoyed that MTV thing that didn’t seem to last, too. Seems like some of the candidates are afraid that they won’t hold up as well as John Edwards when they have to actually talk one on one for half an hour. While it didn’t exactly turn into an impromptu Q&A, it’s a hell of a lot closer than the staged bullshit debates. I say change up the rules, amp up the confrontation, trick them into saying what they actually think. Get questioners that actually have an interest in asking real questions instead of letting them get in some prepared soundbites. At the very least, it’d be interesting to watch, more than you can say now.
Theres a huge difference between being handed an occasional easy question and intentionally rigging an entire debate to favor one candidate and one party. Nothing on this scale has ever happened at a GOP debate. CNN is totally in the tank for Hilary, but pretends impartiality. It’s fraud.
OK, please, by all means, charge a news channel with fraud for pretending to be fair and balanced while consistently favoring one party over the other. Please, please, please set that precedent. You’d have a much better case if the CNN debate actually was harder on the Republicans. But it ain’t, so you don’t, because the system is where the problem is. I want a system where real people actually are given a chance to ask the candidates hard questions. Where candidates would have to occasionally actually have to think for a second about their answer. I wouldn’t mind making the role of the “moderator” completely insignificant. I assume we agree on this issue?
CNN will host the GOP debate soon. Let’s see how many “undecided voters” turn out to be party operatives who out themselves as plants, complaining they were told what questions to ask and even how to ask them. If memory serves that’s only happened once so far.
Let’s see how many undecided voters turn out, period. Furthermore, let’s see if Rudy Giuliani gets asked about his mob connections, Bernard Kerik or any of the other missteps that would have left him a has-been without 9/11, if Mitt Romney gets pressed on abortion or if Fred Thompson gets asked about… well, anything he hasn’t already worked on. Start with the correct pronunciation of Russia. NOBODY will get hard questions, at least no harder than the ones at the Democratic debate. Least of all from the audience. You guys don’t NEED plants.
I do hope, though, that you’re not suggesting that the debate organizers and party people wouldn’t insist on having screened questions. That somehow, the Republican questioners are just that much tougher than the Democratic ones. If anything, your argument would mean that the candidates are fully aware that Republicans don’t ask difficult questions, only Democrats too. Otherwise, there’d be no reason to screen one side and not the other.
Excuse me, I mean “only Democrats do”. But you don’t care, you’re only interested in discussing one particular event, I know. The issue is irrelevant to the problem as a whole, though. Even if they hadn’t called them Undecided Voters, it still would have been just as objectionable. It ain’t about a debate, it’s about a disinterest in serious political analysis beyond looking at poll numbers or the campaign coffers.
Chris Matthews gave the Republican candidates a much rougher ride when he moderated a debate. His antics were widely commented on. Read this from John Podhoretz in NRO’s The Corner, Tuesday, October 09, 2007:
Imagine the screeching if Blitzer did the same to the Dems…
Really? That’s what strikes you as media bias against the Republican party? Chris Matthews? He’s EXACTLY what I’m talking about! He doesn’t give a damn about anybody’s positions on the issues. He just leeches onto whatever he thinks is the political mindset of the nation.
This was two years ago:
Oh yeah, this guy is a REAL partisan hack.
Matthews, former staffer to Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neil is a partisan hack of the highest order. Or did you forget his blather about Bush “Criminality” just before he was due to host the debate?
Yeah, now, when the Republicans’ approval ratings are in the toilet. Before the last election, he was neither a champion of the Democrats or a basher of the GOP.
But we’re talking in circles here and not getting anywhere. You wanna keep believing that the media is out to get you, feel free. But if your idea of fair is FOX news, then you have to understand why I wouldn’t take you seriously.
Right - we got FOX news. Guess you will have to be happy with CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, CNN and MSNBC Wes.
ABC is pretty much in your pocket. At least if Mark Halperin has anything to say about it. But I defy you to find universally positive coverage of John Edwards, universally negative coverage of Rudy Giuliani, or (here’s the real toughie) universally positive coverage of Fred Thompson. The media isn’t juked in any direction, only towards a quest for ratings that feeds on conflict. It’s just the eternal martyr complex trap that any successful special interest group always gets trapped in. You won the war but you never stopped fighting the battle.
Wes reminded us of this Matthew’s statement…
Since this is going to happen, which side of Rushmore do you think GWB’s bust would look the best on? I think with his profile the “RIGHT” would be the best!
I hardly think Matthew’s comment showed bias, just an acknowledgement of how immense the task was. It is truer now than it was two years ago.
Nobody gets universally good coverage from anyplace.
Well, there’s plenty of democracies in the Arab world. Problem is just that they don’t necessarily correlate to stability.
Media Matters has a well-documented problem with Chris Matthews: http://mediamatters.org/items/200505310005
If the right doesn’t like him, the left doesn’t like him either. He put Elizabeth Edwards on with Ann Coulter, but he put Ann Coulter on his show first.
Name an Arab democracy besides Iraq. I will help, there isn’t one. If you define a democracy as a freely elected government, Iraq is the ONLY one. I tell you what; Harry Reid is not the reason Iraq is the first either.
Followed the link. Media Matters is always good for a laugh. Particularly enjoyed this knee slapper:
So, to recap: according to media Matters, Chris Matthews is on par with those notorious right wingers over at NPR.
Ha!
[...] as profoundly odd that people are so unimpressed given that so many are convinced that there is a biased perspective from journalists running the damn things. Why would anyone be opposed to bypassing them [...]
[...] as profoundly odd that people are so unimpressed given that so many are convinced that there is a biased perspective from journalists running the damn things. Why would anyone be opposed to bypassing them [...]
Unfortunately there is no longer any such thing as objective journalism. I’m not sure that there ever was. I’d like to think that I’m intelligent enough to see through their BS and form my own opions but I’m think far too many people take what they hear on the news as gospel truth.
And yes CNN’s canonisation of St Hillary is getting downright sickening.
As for Arab democracies I suppose that depends how much you stretch the definition of Arab. You could I suppose include Turkey and Egypt. Strictly speaking Iraqis and Iranians are actually Persian not Arab are they not?
The Turks are Turks, not Arabs. They are ethnically different, and do not speak Arabic.
Egypt can be considered an Arab country, though Egyptians and Arabs are ethnically different.
Egypt is far from a functioning democracy. Mubarak is a dictator.
Iran has a substantial minority population of Arabs. It however is considered a Persian country as you said. Persians are ethnically different and they speak Farsi, not Arabic. Iran is far from a democracy, their elections are far from free. Any governmental decision, including the the court’s are subject to being over ruled by the Imams.
Iraq is an Arab country, the only one with a freely elected government.
I wasn’t suggesting Iran was a democracy I was just saying I thought they and the Iraqis were Persian. I believe Iraq was part of the original Persian empire which is probably why I thought that but I’ll accept that they are an ethnically Arab country.
Esypt like some other countries, Pakistan and Russia for example, is an sotensibly democratic country in that they “elect” a leader but the power he holds over the country doesn’t fit an American’s strict definition of the term democratic. We could probably split hairs for the next year over what defines democracy so I can’t tell you you’re wrong but there aren’t a lot of pure democracies out there by our definition except for ourselves and most of Europe.
Wow we got way off topic sorry. It is an interesting discussion anyway PG if you wanted to you could probably start another blog on it.
Debates Debates back on topic sorry folks.
Actually ME, much of Iraq including Baghdad was a part of the Safavid Empire. They were Shi’ites like the Persians but Arabic like the Sunnis (thus the problems there today).
OK now this is kind of coming back to me. And the Kurds are yet another ethnic group that’s sort of been a people without a country for quite a long time but the Safavids werwe some sort of inremingling between the Kurds and Azerbaijani (think I butchered that spelling) I read a very good article on all of this a couple of years back which laid out all of the ethnic tensions ni Iraq but damned if I can remember it now. I’ve got to dig that back out and do some research this weekend. After fishing of course.
I shall re-enter this forum a more educated person on this topic at a later date.
The Kurds are seperate, and historicaly nomadic to a certain extent. There are Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran. The speak Kurdish, again not Arabic.