It’s been over a full day since the CNN/YouTube Republican debate, and I think it’s time for a full roundup of the identified plants in the questioning:
1) Retired Colonel Keith Kerr, staffer on Hillary Clinton’s and John Kerry’s campaigns.
3) Mark Strauss, announced Bill Richardson supporter.
4) David Cerrone, announced Barack Obama supporter.
5) LeeAnn Anderson, United Steelworkers Union activist — which has endorsed John Edwards.
6) “Journey,” another announced Edwards supporter.
7) Ted Faturos, former intern to Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA).
8 of 34. Just under 24%. And a ninth was a former intern for CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but I’ll give that one a bye.
(Most links shamelessly stolen from Michelle Malkin’s superb roundup and comments therein — I just simplified the dickens out of them.)
There’s an old saying — “never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.” (Some versions say “stupidity,” but the “incompetence” fits better here.)
Here is CNN, “The Most Trusted Name In News.” And after they got caught with a bunch of Democratic operatives and activists posing as “average, undecided voters” and lobbing softballs at the last Democratic debate, they go full-tilt into the Republican debate and almost a full quarter of the questioners have either committed themselves to a particular Democratic candidate or — in McMillan’s case — made it abundantly clear that there is no way in hell they’d vote for a Republican.
I defy anyone — anyone — to say that this was an accident, a coincidence, a quirk, a happenstance.
Pay special attention to Colonel Kerr. Not only has he appeared on CNN numerous times in the past, they thought so highly of him that they flew him in to the debate and granted him more time to speak on his issue than any of the candidates. They even dug up a quote from Mitt Romney from 13 years ago to use in conjunction with Kerr’s question.
But they couldn’t find out that he had lent his name and credibility to Hillary Clinton — just as he had to John Kerry four years ago.
Nor could CNN find out about the other seven questioners cited above.
As has been noted in too few places, the questions they posed, for the most part, were good ones. And while it might have been uncomfortable for the candidates to face them, I’m all in favor of making candidates uncomfortable.
But the way CNN arranged this — and didn’t disclose any of it until they were busted, live and on the air, by William Bennett — means that any actual substance at the debate has been overshadowed by their own outrageous misconduct.
If there is any justice in this world, this will spell the end of CNN as a credible news source.
But then I thought that would happen after they admitted that they’d suppressed news of Saddam’s atrocities after they were threatened — both with loss of their “access” and, sometimes, their physical safety. And that didn’t happen then, either.
I’m going to predict that this, too, will have no lasting consequences.
But god dammit, it should.
