By now, everyone and their grandmother knows that the right is all puffed up like a porcupine fish over the supposedly "planted question". Now, most media outlets, at least those that have any journalistic integrity at all, have already made clear that the guy has no relationship with the Clinton campaign at all. Indeed, by focusing on the phony controversy (these right-wingers are so bloated with outrage, they remind me of photos of dead horses from the Civil War, about ready to burst, spilling their guts everywhere) the press continues to give some kind of legitimacy to this nonsense.
Yet, Sen. Clinton has admitted to planting questions in the past, so in a sense, she and her campaign staff do bear responsibility for the viability of this crap.
Yet, CNN has also planted questions.
Grover Norquist, hardly a "regular Joe", managed to get his question before the Republican candidates. Norquist, for those who might not know, is the howling mad anti-tax "guru" who has been around since the Reagan Administration, claiming the income tax is unconstitutional (despite a Constitutional Amendment giving Congress authority . . . to impose an income tax; I wonder if these people actually read the Constitution, or the Bible for that matter).
All of this shows that these "debates" aren't debates at all. I'm not sure what one would call them. CNN already made clear they vetted the questions, so putting the "YouTube" moniker on them is pretty silly - people could have emailed these video questions.
To me, the biggest story is how screeching insane every one of the candidates appeared (except Ron Paul). It was almost a contest to see who could be more angry, more blood-thirsty, more hate-filled toward brown folk. By the way, the audience didn't boo McCain as some have claimed, during an exchange with Ron Paul over the latter's desire to withdraw from Iraq. They booed Paul for saying that America has no business being the global nanny state. The folks in the audience may hate McCain (for what reason I still don't understand because he is just as loony as the rest of them) but they love this occupation, and they want America to continue fulfilling Ann Coulter's instructions, post-9/11.
No one is talking about that. I have yet to read a story, a post, even a blurb anywhere that reads, "The CNN/YouTube debate featuring the Republican contenders for their party's nomination for President revealed that every Republican candidate except Ron Paul is emotionally, psychologically, and politically unfit to be elected County Coroner." That's the real story.
All of 'em are just barking.
On a final note - what rule, exactly, was broken by having a gay former admiral ask a legitimate question? Where were the questions on the contraction in the credit and housing markets? Where were the questions on the shakiness of the retail sector? On agricultural price supports and the recent jump in milk prices? What about the safety of our troops in the field in light of revelations the military is keeping soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen in the field who are physically and psychologically unfit to fulfill their duties? These are questions of importance, and substance. Having a 23-minute long orgy of Mexican-hating only serves to show how unbalanced these people are; the most unbalanced, Tom Tancredo, managed to mention this little fun fact, but it is still largely unnoticed.
