Peggy’s Take On The CNN/You Tube Debate
I will never forget that breathtaking moment when, in the CNN/YouTube debate earlier this fall, the woman from Ohio held up a picture and said, “Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards, this is a human fetus. Given a few more months, it will be a baby you could hold in your arms. You all say you’re ‘for the children.’ I would ask you to look America in the eye and tell us how you can support laws to end this life. Thank you.”
They were momentarily nonplussed, then awkwardly struggled to answer, to regain lost high ground. One of them, John Edwards I think, finally criticizing the woman for being “manipulative,” using “hot images” and indulging in “the politics of personal destruction.” The woman then stood in the audience for her follow up. “I beg your pardon, but the literal politics of personal destruction–of destroying a person–is what you stand for.”
That would have been a good question to ask, but it never happened, nor would it ever have been given a second thought. You must not confront Democrats with the realities that they created. Instead, we did see a question asked about the Bible. Other than Romney, I think everyone did a good job answering. That right there is the difference..The left believes that it is an inalienable right to murder a child at 4-9 months gestation, and don’t you dare question them on it, but how dare a person believe in God, let alone live their lives according to his teachings.
Let’s not forget that it was also CNN that ran the series ‘God’s Warriors’which basically whitewashed Islam.
…..We don’t have time to touch on all of the many issues that that you had with Christiane Ammanpour’s special. So why don’t you just tell us what you believe was the most egregious factual error in this documentary, “God’s Warriors?”
ALEX SAFIAN, CAMERA ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR: Well, there were so many of them. I think the most important thing is just doing a series where you build it around these terms God’s Christian Warriors, Muslim Warriors, and Jewish Warriors equates people who are devout Jews and devout Christians with Islamists, with Muslim warriors who have killed 100,000 people in Algeria, at least 200,000 people in Darfur recently, thousands of people in America, thousands of people in Israel, bombings in London, in Spain, in Bali, basically all around the world. And to equate that kind of violence that has been, that has been carried out by Islamists with, you know, a Christian college where, where students are supposed to dress modestly and Christiane Ammanpour compares that to the Taliban is really way over the line.
Over the line? Nope, that’s CNN! Remember why the Democrats boycotted the Fox Debate? It was a “right-wing mouthpiece.”
MoveOn.org, one of the nation’s leading progressive organizations, gathered more than 250,000 signatures asking the Nevada Democratic Party to drop Fox as a debate sponsor. The group also created a web site — www.foxattacks.com — to highlight the issue. Featured prominently on the site is a short film, produced by documentary maker Robert Greenwald, raising questions about the “fair and balanced” coverage provided by the cable network.
“We wanted to send a clear message to voters, the media and the presidential candidates that Fox is part of the right-wing smear machine, not a legitimate source of news,” said MoveOn civic communications director Adam Green……
…..Last month, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean defended the decision to work with Fox, saying the debate was “about talking to voters, not a network.”
Looks like the Republican’s did just fine talking to the voter’s…too bad the Democrats are so afraid to do the same.
It appears that Tim Rutten of the LA Times is none too pleased with CNN:
THE United States is at war in the Middle East and Central Asia, the economy is writhing like a snake with a broken back, oil prices are relentlessly climbing toward $100 a barrel and an increasing number of Americans just can’t afford to be sick with anything that won’t be treated with aspirin and bed rest.
So, when CNN brought the Republican presidential candidates together this week for what is loosely termed a “debate,” what did the country get but a discussion of immigration, Biblical inerrancy and the propriety of flying the Confederate flag?
In fact, this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate raises serious questions about whether CNN is ethically or professionally suitable to play the political role the Democratic and Republican parties recently have conceded it.Selecting a president is, more than ever, a life and death business, and a news organization that consciously injects itself into the process, as CNN did by hosting Wednesday’s debate, incurs a special responsibility to conduct itself in a dispassionate and, most of all, disinterested fashion. When one considers CNN’s performance, however, the adjectives that leap to mind are corrupt and incompetent.
Corruption is a strong word. But consider these facts: The gimmick behind Wednesday’s debate was that the questions would be selected from those that ordinary Americans submitted to the video sharing Internet website YouTube, which is owned by Google. According to CNN, its staff culled through 5,000 submissions to select the handful that were put to the candidates. That process essentially puts the lie to the vox populi aura the association with YouTube was meant to create. When producers exercise that level of selectivity, the questions — whoever initially formulated and recorded them — actually are theirs.
He’s right, too. It was more than just the unjustifiable failure to vet the questioners. It was about how the questions got selected and how much CNN intruded their own viewpoints into the selection process. They failed utterly as a neutral, non-partisan organization, descending into agenda-driven, partisan hackery.
Not that I am complaining, they are corrupt. They have allowed planted questioners and questions at Democratic and Republican debates, they have published an video, admittedly obtained from a terror group as propaganda, of a sniper killing our U.S. Military troops, then they even went further and offered that video with their On Demand to make money from enemy propaganda.
H/T to memeorandum
December 1, 2007 - 05:28 PM on December 1st, 2007
After so many pointing out their bias and corruption for so long, it was great to see Rutten take them down publicly.
Thanks for the mention.