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In The Blog's-Eye: The 'Clinton News Network'

I didn't have time yesterday to do a roundup of blog entries about Wednesday's CNN/YouTube-hosted debate with Republican candidates. But the controversy is still going strong today, so here are excerpts from some critical posts about how CNN, derided as the "Clinton News Network" by many GOp bloggers, handled the debate:

-- Ankle Biting Pundits: "By my recollection, there were no questions on health care, the economy, trade, the S-CHIP children’s healthcare issue, the 'surge' in Iraq, the spending showdown between President Bush and Congress, terrorist surveillance, or the performance of the Democratic Congress."

-- Bluey Blog: "Today conservatives are left with yet another example of bias at the highest level of the media establishment. It’s another sad example of how liberals deliberately portray conservatives as gun-toting, Bible-thumping, and gay-bashing bigots."

-- The Campaign Spot: "Last night I had a terrible dream, where the Republican candidates were berated by a cartoon Dick Cheney, and some scary nut who was waving around the Bible, and some shadowy Bond villain asking about immigrants, and a gay soldier who was working for Hillary [Clinton]. ... Wait a minute, that was real!"

-- Captain's Quarters: "Memo to CNN: quit trying to excuse this away. No one tried "extremely hard" to vet these questions. Obviously, no one tried vetting them at all. The continuation of the pretense only damages your credibility even further than the debate did."

(Ed Morrissey, by the way, is one of several Republicans who has defended the right of Democratic voters to ask questions of Republican candidates. Their gripe is with CNN not doing its homework and disclosing the Democratic ties of the chosen questioners.)

-- Instapundit: "If Fox hosted a Democratic debate and many of the most pointed questions turned out to come from Republican activists, but Fox didn't disclose that, do you think it would pass unremarked?" (Glenn Reynolds also took major media-focused publications to task for ignoring the controversy. Journalism, cover thyself!" he said, and then added, "Well, actually I think they are covering.")

-- Michelle Malkin: "The best thing about Republicans agreeing to do the CNN/YouTube debate is that it created yet another invaluable opportunity to expose CNN’s abject incompetence.:

-- Outside The Beltway: "If lone bloggers can vet these people in less than half an hour, surely CNN’s crack journalistic team should have been able to do so between the time they selected the pool of questions and the airing of the debate?"

-- Personal Democracy Forum: CNN's David Bohrman "seems far more enamored of his glitzy mobile newsroom with its "terabytes" of video storage capacity than he is in offering us any insight into the process."

-- Right Wing News: "CNN allowed someone connected to Hillary Clinton's campaign to ask a question to the GOP candidates and then comment on their answers without ever revealing his Clinton affiliation."

-- TechRepublican: "The quick-and-short from those of us on the ground was that the CNN editorial process unfairly influenced the debate using its liberal, narrow perspective of what the GOP 'represents' to only choose those questions which focused primarily on: God, guns, gays and immigration."

-- Think Progress: "Out of almost 5,000 video submissions, CNN chose to pose 34 to the candidates tonight. Instead of alloting all slots to ordinary citizens -- who don't normally have access to politicians -- CNN gave airtime to a question from Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist."

-- Townhall.com: "This is utterly ridiculous. CNN should be incredibly ashamed and people should be fired over this. As it is, there's no mention of it on their front page."

Posted by Danny | 09:15 AM

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