Over at Ace's digs:

. . . The correct answer to the Confederate Flag question is "Sir, I am not running for Governor of Georgia. Fly the flag, don't fly the flag, honestly, most Americans see this as a regional controversy best left to individuals and States. Fuck You, Next Question."

Leave it to Ace's crew to come up with the appropriate response to these "gotchas." FY, NQ.

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Protein Wisdom's Karl runs a small roundup, and concludes:

It seems that CNN spent about as much time researching the criticism of its televised trainwreck as it put into vetting the people they put at the controls of the train. It also appears that the network’s spokespeople have no idea that the content of the selected questions says every bit as much about their biases as the questioners they promoted — though CNN could have discovered it by canvassing the blogs discussing the “debate.”

Then again, it does appear that CNN does not have what the YouTube generation would call “mad Intartubes skillz.”

Update: It appears that Rush Limbaugh also thought a debate amongst Republican candidates leading up to Republican caucuses and primaries should feature questions about the issues which most concern Republicans, rather than reflecting CNNÂ’s stereotype of the GOP. So add radio to the list of technologies CNN has yet to master.

I'm actually pretty embarrassed for CNN. I'm not even sure that they're stonewalling: it could be that they just honestly don't get it. If the stakes weren't so high, their tiny minds would tug at my heartstrings. But selecting a President is kind of a serious matter; any chance CNN could hire some grownups to get them through the next year?

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Red State is drawing a line in the sand over the number of Democratic party activist questioners in last night's "Republican" debate on CNN:

This debate was not about Republicans asking the Republican candidates questions. This was about CNN abusing its position to push a Democratic agenda.

This has all the markings of a set up, and heads should roll at CNN.

In the meantime:

1) Republican candidates for President should boycott CNN.

2) Republican viewers should boycott CNN until they fire Sam Feist, their political director; and David Bohrman, Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of the debate.

3) One or more of the Republican candidates should demand a do-over, wherein we can have a substantive debate about substantive issues that exclude CNN's agenda, which is clearly out of touch with the Republican party, and the drivel we saw from YouTube.

Though it is rare we take this additional step from a "Directors" post, we the undersigned contributors want to make sure our names are attached hereto:

Erick Erickson
Thomas Crown
Ben Domenech
Jeff Emanuel
Dan Spencer, aka California Yankee
Mark I.
Kevin Holtsberry
Pejman Yousefzadeh
Moe Lane
streiff
Alexham
Dave Poff, aka haystack
Martin A. Knight
Robert A. Hahn
Leon H. Wolf

(The emphasis is mine.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Over at Protein Wisdom, Karl fillets CNN.

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Why his popularity is a victory for libertarians, no matter how we feel about him as a man or a candidate:

He's just terrible, even when—which is often, once he's off the subject of the war—I agree with him. His voice is too high, he can't remember who the Kurds are, and he often comes off like a crazy old man in a bus station.

But that's good news, in a way. Paul's doing better than anyone expected. It's abundantly clear that he's not doing it on charisma and rhetorical skill. Which means that libertarian ideas are actually appealing, since Ron Paul isn't. Paul's flaws as a vessel for those ideas prove the ideas' appeal. If they sell with him as the pitchman, they must be really resonating. I suspect Paul himself would agree with this analysis. Er, except maybe the bus station part.

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"I'm not buying that CNN was an honest broker here."

Was Keith Kerr's question fair? Well, sure, the question was fair. The staging of a sympathetic Hillary plant to ask it live, and seemingly without end, was not. CNN will argue they didn't know he was a Hillary plant (despite the fact it was easy enough to find out; he was found on Google to be a plant within minutes of the debate's end). But so what if they didn't know his partisan affiliation? What the hell were they doing handing the show over to him for a solid five or seven minutes anyway?

It made for sharp questioning and good drama. But if that's the name of the game, let me suggest to CNN that they allow a paralyzed veteran with limbs missing due to an IED attack similarly grill the Democratic candidates on whether they support the Democratic Congress' determination to choke off all monies needed for the military's anti-IED program. Give him the mic, live, and let him harangue the Democrats on the viciousness of IEDs, and the viciousness of them putting soldiers' lives, and limbs, in jeopardy to appease their netroots base.

Would CNN ever do such a thing? Of course not. There would be no vetting of whether he was affiliated with any campaign because there would never even be a thought of letting him grill the Democrats at all.

So CNN can fuck itself sideways with their claims of "just allowing ordinary Americans to voice their concerns." They choose which "ordinary Americans" get to ask questions; they're nothing but sock-puppets for the political agenda of CNN. The moment they begin allowing sympathetic figures to embarrass Democrats, I'll call them fair. But they won't -- the Democrats get protected, the Republicans get embarrassed.

Even the right-wing (or supposedly right-wing) questioners in these debates are chosen for their scare value. I remember at the last CNN You Tube debate -- the Democratic one -- when their question about gun rights was posed by a frankly frightening character who demonstrated a nearly sexual fascination with his weapons, calling them his "babies" (presumably, the babies he molests at night). They could have chosen, I'm sure, a dozen gun-rights questions from a dozen more reputable and more reasonable folks... instead, they put the gun-rights question in the mouth of just the sort of character that gives gun rights a bad name.

Given that a guy you wouldn't trust with a butter knife was asking if he could have all the M-16s he could possibly want for his regularly-scheduled schoolyard killing spree, it was rather easy for Joe Biden to call this nutjob what he was and say something along the lines of "You're exactly the moron I'm thinking of when I'm voting for gun control laws." And of course most of America agreed; hell, even I agreed.

RTWT.

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The Paul-Bots have broken free of the internet, and invaded the heartland.

Via American Princess.

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on the Ron Paul phenomenon:

Most [Paul supporters] are normal people who live next to you, who go to the same supermarkets with you, and who send their children to the same schools. IÂ’m leaning towards Soren DaytonÂ’s belief that the Paul phenomenon is a protest vote. ItÂ’s a reaction to failures of Republicans to reduce the size and scope of government. ItÂ’s sort of like Pat Buchanan opposing President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

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. . . may not be coming out at a particularly convenient time for Mrs. Clinton:

Mrs. Willey noted that Carl Bernstein wrote in his biography of Mrs. Clinton, "A Woman in Charge," that it "was not Clinton's philandering that bothered Hillary so much as her inability to control it," and that Mrs. Clinton has long been aware of her husband's wandering ways.

"Hillary has been hiring private investigators to scope out what Bill had been doing since he was governor," Ms. Willey said.

Other women — including Juanita Broaddrick, Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones — have testified to Mr. Clinton's behavior as governor of Arkansas. That behavior exploded into crisis during the 1998 Lewinsky scandal, which ended with Mr. Clinton impeached by the House on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, but acquitted by the Senate.

Mrs. Willey said that the Clinton administration's "damage control" operation consisted of private investigators keeping quiet the women with whom Mr. Clinton had supposed relations through intimidation, while influencing press coverage.

"It was hard to sit there and watch what the media was saying about me night after night" after her name became public during Kenneth W. Starr's independent counsel investigation of the Lewinsky scandal, she said.

"It was all untrue," she said. "It was a terrible smear campaign. There are bruises, believe me, but since I am a strong woman, I stayed strong."

Mrs. Willey says she received numerous threats — nails were driven in all four tires of her sport utility vehicle, her cat disappeared and a mysterious jogger near her Virginia home told her, "Hey, Kathleen. ... You are just not getting the message, are you?"

It was "a reign of terror," she said. "My car was vandalized; my children were threatened; I was threatened."

She sees all of this as part of a pattern.

"I think it's pretty obvious that she stuck with him because she had a 30-year plan to be president," Mrs. Willey said. "They are co-presidents. 'Buy one, get one free.' Clinton admitted this in the 1992 campaign."

As to Mrs. Clinton's playing what she calls "the gender card" in the current election campaign, Mrs. Willey said the former first lady is not an "advocate for feminism, but an advocate for one woman: Hillary Clinton."

Bill Clinton is one of the most talented politicians that has ever lived. But the idea of having him back in the White House—even as a First Spouse—really turns my stomach. Ironically, he may be his wife's greatest liability. And I'm not talking about his tomcatting, but rather the scorched earth tactics both Clintons used against their political opponents.

I wonder what it says in my FBI file. Ugh. The Clintons are very unattractive people.

Willey again:

"This is an important story for people to read, women in particular, and first-time voters who are considering [voting] for Hillary," she said. "This book will enlighten the public about what happened to me, and the kind of people we are dealing with: the Clintons."

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I don't think I've ever been made fun of quite this elegantly.

(The next post down is where the Cat and I have been having our debate about Terrorism vs. the Economy as the main challenge of this day and age.)

For the record, I do agree with Ben Franklin about how it isn't a hot idea to give up liberty for safety. And, in fact, that is why McCain ranks so low on my list—and why, despite my admiration for his gender-bending, Giuliani has so many question marks next to his name (and it isn't just gun rights that Rudy is weak on: there were all kinds of infringements on civil liberties when he was mayor of NYC, and seeing that expanded to the Federal level—when the Feds aren't bastions of restraint, even now—certainly gives one pause.

So, yes. I'm over my crush on Giuliani.)

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then how does that change the game in the 2008 election?

Insty:

[It's] bad news for the Republicans in that those who have held their nose and stuck with the GOP because of the war are likely to feel freer to vote for people they agree with on other issues. And while it's true that Iraq is not the war on terror, it's also likely that the post-2009 phase of the war on terror will involve less outright war and more spying, backstabbing, subtle undermining, bribery, extortion and cooptation. Hmm. What candidate might be good at that sort of thing?

Don't fear the reaper.

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why they are gaining a reputation for internet-based hijinx?

Via The Accidental Mind/Blog, which has some great stuff on its front page. Keep scrolling!

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So far, so good.

Via Insty, Volokh discusses how "refreshing" it is to see someone running for President who takes the Constitution seriously:

"I think people ought to be free at state and local levels to make decisions that even Fred Thompson disagrees with. That’s what freedom is all about. And I think the diversity we have among the states, the system of federalism we have where power is divided between the state and the federal government is, is, is—serves us very, very well."

Many politicians say such things. President Bush, for one, spoke quite a bit about the need for state flexibility when he was a Governor and a candidate, but seems to have forgotten about such things over the past six years. It appears Thompson actually means it, however, as he stuck to his federalist guns even when confronted with issues where many "conservatives" abandon federalism and embrace federal power. He even endorsed state autonomy where such a position meant rejecting policy positions favored by significant portions of the GOP base.

On abortion, for example, Thompson said that he believes that life begins at conception, and that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned. Yet he further stated that he opposes a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion and the language endorsing a federal prohibition in the 2004 GOP Platform.

Similarly, on gay marriage, Thompson said that he believes "marriage is between a man and a woman," but stops short of endorsing a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage. Rather, Thompson said he supports an amendment to prevent the imposition of gay marriage by the judiciary, but that state legislatures should be free to recognize gay marriage if such a policy is supported by the people of a given state. As I understand it, Thompson's position is essentially that outlined by Michael Greve, and which would provide a constitutional backstop to the Defense of Marriage Act, but would not prevent states from making their own choices about gay marriage.

I keep looking for something about Thompson I can really dislike, but I'm not finding too much just yet. He seems to have the highest level of charisma among the GOP contenders, and the strongest principles. I also think he may have fewer skeletons in his closet than just about any of the candidates—from both parties.

UPDATE: More on Federalism (and Fred Thompson) at The Jawa Report.

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