November 29, 2007
Republican Debate Postmortem: A Bad Night For CNN
CNN's sorry, so very sorry, for the Clinton plant at last night's debate.
"We regret this, and apologize to the Republican candidates. We never would have used the General's question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate," said CNN exec David Bohrman.
"The Most Trusted Name In News" protests that it checked out retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr, the gay serviceman who asked the Republican candidates about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to make sure he had not contributed to any of the candidates. But if CNN's producers had just, say, Googled the guy, they would have found that he is a member of Hillary Rodham Clinton's LGBT steering committee. Bloggers did, and they were alerting the media about it before the debate was over.
Let's assume that CNN tried its level best to ensure a fair and balanced debate for the Republicans. The network's defense of how it not only let the Kerr question through without full disclosure but gave him five minutes on the floor for follow-up rings pretty weak because of the swiftness and ease with which bloggers found him out. As I noted in my liveblog coverage yesterday, conservatives were already dubious about whether they would be treated fairly at last night's forum, and afterward, a few prominent bloggers agreed they were not.
What it comes down to is this: The debate last night was first and foremost about Republican primary voters, not the general electorate. The reasonable thing to have done was make sure there were plenty of questions being asked by Republicans on issues of primary concern to Republicans. Those illegal immigration questions were a good start, but the evening took several bizarre turns as the night went on. Since the debate ended, conservative bloggers have found out the following:
1. That abortion question that I thought seemed unfair came from a John Edwards supporter.
2. That question about why more blacks aren't Republicans was from an Edwards supporter who ridicules blacks who are Republicans --- on his YouTube page(!).
3. That question to Ron Paul on whether he would "let America down" and not run as a third-party candidate was asked by a Bill Richardson supporter who already asked a question during the Democrats' CNN/YouTube debate(!!).
There's more. (Hat tips: The Autopsy, Jason Coleman, Michelle Malkin and Red State)
CNN was well aware of its reputation as hostile to conservatives before last night. "Some of the Republican candidates don't trust us.... But I've been very clear from the beginning: This will be a Republican debate, and the goal is to let Republican voters see their candidates," Bohrman said in remarks published by the Washington Post on Tuesday.
The network acknowledges it erred in not disclosing Kerr's Clinton connection. Whether it really matters whom the questions come from is debatable. But by goofing so often in its selection process, CNN did GOP primary voters a disservice by allowing so many people who already have their minds made up about the Republican candidates to pose questions that they thought they knew the answers to already. If anyone needs help between now and January, it's Republican primary voters, who haven't really latched on to a front-runner and feel generally listless about next year's elections to begin with.
Conservatives are justifiably angry about last night's debate, though I stress there is nothing here to indicate a) CNN's producers let the now-hostile-seeming Democrats' questions through on purpose, or b) that CNN is a hopelessly anti-conservative network. (I mean, Lou Dobbs?) Maybe the fairest way to put it is CNN clearly knew better and for whatever reason goofed anyway. Jim Geraghty seems to agree: "There are times when I think some of the criticism of CNN is unfair, but they stepped in it with this one, and did so repeatedly -- both with the lack of Googling of their questioners and their sense of what questions were worth asking."
Posted at 5:58 PM
Posted to:
Bill Richardson, Campaigns, Democrats, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Media, Republicans, Ron Paul, WH 2008
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