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GOP Death Wish II: Question Us Not
Republicans and their blogospheric helpmaidens are in high dudgeon because some of the questions asked at this week’s CNN debate came from Democrats.
Am I to take this to mean that the GOP’s death wish is so powerful that they don’t even want their presidential wannabes questioned by people other than their own?
Just asking.
33 Responses to “GOP Death Wish II: Question Us Not”
Yes of course having a question inserted in the debate by a Hillary staffer is exactly the same.
Of course, your argument would have more weight if any republicans had asked questions during the Democratic debates. Instead, we get union officials who have already spoken to the candidates asking softball questions (see Las Vegas).
I would have preferred to hear questions about energy, health care, environment, tort reform, transportation, homeland security, education, affirmative action instead of about the bible, the death penalty (a state question), or lead paint in toys.
Considering that at least 8 of the questioners have been shown to be Democratic Party activist and adding in the two blacks, at least 1/3 of the questions were from Democrats in a debate with the candidates in the Republican Primary.
Criticizing Giuliani is valid; what you posted here to start this thread is complete nonsense. Obviously you don’t like the GOP and resentment against Democratic and liberal misconduct. Normal people dislike the misconduct.
Actually, I hardly think being on the GLBT committee qualifies as being a “staffer”.
But the real question remains. Was the question the problem? Or the person asking it? I thought the questions were actually quite good.
As opposed to Republicans asking questions at the Dems YouTube debate such as.
Or maybe
But then, there wasn’t any outcry over those.
Then again, the biggest complaint I’ve read about the GOP debate is that America got a chance to listen to the GOP base ask their candidates questions that most Republicans wouldn’t want to have to defend the answers to in the general election.
Yes, Real Americans prefer that citizens take a loyalty pledge to the GOP before asking their potential presidents a question.
But it’s nice to see the wingnuts opine about the good old days of Free Speech Zones.
I think Dems should answer questions by Repubs and vice versa-
mix it up a little instead of the dittohead, invite-only clone armies they trot out.
Then again, this is US politics we’re talking about.
To quote Orwell “One person speaking is a monolog, two persons speaking a dialog, and three persons speaking, politics.”
They let Black People ask questions??
Geez, you start getting them involved and the next thing you know they’ll be demanding the right to vote!
Seriously, I just can’t imagine why more African Americans don’t vote Republican.
But being an advisor Hillary’s on the GLBT issues does qualify him as a staffer. That is the problem I have not the question at all. And comparing someone who is a staffer asking a question to obvious “man on the street” people is …………… well apples to oranges at the very least. We are not talking about a regular Joe here. He took himself out of that category when he started working with Hillary.
Why did people get upset when FEMA had a pretend news conference or Hillary had the fake questions? The info wasn’t bad and few called if it was the truth. People were upset because it looked deceitful, like someone was trying to put one over on them. This is another situation that, while not even close to as bad, makes you wonder. Personally I’m wondering about CNN, what they knew, ect. They may take a hit if they knew and didn’t disclose all the facts. If there is more let it spead over the internet. If not it will fade away big deal.
Thanks, Cavebo,
You saved me the trouble of typing to say what you said.
The questions should, indeed, come from a mixed group of questioners. Isn’t the what the clamor for tough questions is all about?
Those who have a problem with that, have a problem nobody else can solve for them.
I think the Republicans have many a reason to be flipping out over the way CNN crafted and executed this “debate”. Shaun, if it was reversed, I think you’d be going bonkers.
That said, it’s kind of the perfect trap for Repubs because I think that your observation is right on that this outrage will play poorly in the general population as it draws attention to difficult questions. Did CNN set this trap intentionally? I personally wouldn’t give them that much credit… But the trap is set nonetheless.
You know, if these things were actually substantial question and answer sessions where candidates in both parties were forced to answer difficult questions posed by whoever, none of this would be a “scandal”. Just food for thought.
Like I mentioned in the other thread – it doesn’t bother me in the least, but I wonder what the reaction among the liberals here would be if a Guliani plant did something similar in the Democratic debate. In other words, if you’re going to pooh-pooh the GoP reaction, you better pooh-pooh as well when it happens to the Democrats….
Fox interviews the Democrats and the people asking leading questions and making GOP and conservative speeches when asking questions turn out to be GOP campaign operatives and employees of right-wing activists and talk radio hosts — Shaun would start about 20 new threads on the subject and others on this site would start threads with postings taking up nearly the entire screen.
Davebo nailed it. The questioner may have been on Clinton’s committee, but the question needed to be asked. I actually have no problem with Republicans asking Democrats whether their taxes will go up. Its not as though only Republicans watch GOP debates or Democrats watch their own candidates. We all should be looking past the primaries to the general election.
Entropy,
“I wonder what the reaction among the liberals here would be if a Guliani plant did something similar in the Democratic debate. ”
I don’t think the identity of the quesioner matters. The forum should be open to more than just party members. See Davebo’s comments for examples of non-Dem questions at their debate.Those were good questions, and whether they were asked by a ‘plant’ or not doesn’t change the nature of the question. I don’t remember anyone even wondering about the party affilitation or motivation
of those quesioners, BTW.
In this case, I don’t see how the question would be any more or less acceptable is it were qsked by a gay Republican.
I think the moderator matters more than the questions. When he badgers candidates by demanding yes/no answers to complex questions,(like Russet) that bothers me a lot more than the nature of any quesiton posed.
I think the moderater for the GOP set a much better tone, and for that, the participants should be grateful.
The questions should be open to everyone. In the case of the general, he spent half the “question” stating his qualifications, I’m sure he could have fit his associations in. I really have no problem with any questioner though, as long as they care about hearing the answer.
In the words of paperserenade who asked about abortion, she didn’t even see Ron Paul’s response. So, why should she, and others who don’t care about the answer, get to ask questions?
It’s not like Bush and Cheney pick sites for speeches or vett the audience for their townhall meetings. But the Lutz meter says Rebulicans like waterboarding and didn’t like McCain’s response, McCain should know something about torture. Enough about the questions, what about Mitter’s pandering to sadomasochists?
“why should she, and others who don’t care about the answer, get to ask questions?”
Okay how do you dettermine ahead of time how the one adking the quesion will react to the answer?
If it’s a good quesion, it has to stand on is own merit, no matter what the answer is or who the quesioner is or how either of them act.
Dealing with the publiccan always result in the unexpected. That’s life.
I wonder which party is asking for a “Loyalty Oath” from voters in Virginia?
domajot:
I agree with you completely.
What’s the difference between a Guiliani supporter asking Romney a tough question and a Dem asking a Repub a tough question? I’m sure that not all questions posed to Rudy, or Mitt, or Huckabee, or whichever candidate were posed by their respective supporters. So why should it matter where the questions come from?
These debates are “get to know the candidates” so the voting public can vote for the candidate who best represents them (I wish the voters were better informed…). The Dems’ positions are very different than the Republicans’ positions. Since we already know the broad strokes of each candidate based on their party, and that the Prez. is the leader for all people, I say let the Dems ask all the Republican candidates questions in the next Republican debate and vice versa. The Prez. should be aware of all concerns of the citizens and be able to make sound decisions, taking into account all relevant factors. The American public has a right to see how the candidates will make decisions. For example, will the decision be based on purely partisan lines? Does the candidate take all views into consideration and even if the decision is not what many people would like? Is it still thoughtful and well-advised? The candidates need to be more forthcoming with their beliefs and not just cater to who they THINK their supporters are. That’s the only way we Americans can make a good choice for Prez. (and other elected offices).
The candidates are not candidates for an office. They are candidates for the Republican nomination for the President. Having a staff member covertly involved in that process seems to violate the sniff test regardless of the question. If it was a news conference and a Dem staffer posed as a reporter to ask a question would you say “but it was a good question”? It’s doubtful the majority of people would. This doesn’t rise to the same level and all that may happen, be needed, or deserved is for CNN to take a hit because of the way it was setup. The idea that it’s somehow wrong to be concerned or that there was nothing wrong in how it happened is absurd and smacks of partisanship.
By the way Dom the General is a gay Republican, who is working with Hillary.
The question:
(NYT)
This “question” isn’t a question, it’s a statement. Basically it states that [if] they support don’t ask don’t tell they, consequently, don’t think gays and lesbians should serve at all and therefore, think that “American men and women in uniform are not professional”.
Bones and Pear=-
With your points of view, then, the qustions and the questioners should be pre-picked.
Okay, then, that’s another format entirely.. Have the GOP do precisely that. Just don’t pretend, then, it’s a general audience/public participation event.
If the Republicans want to take the exclusive club with no undomfortable questions appoach, then that’s okay with me, as long as it’s made clear that it is what it is.
I wouldn’t think that this would be a good PR move,
There are lots of uncomitted people who are sizing up the candidates from both parties. This approach would not be attractive to any of those, I suspect.
But, if the Reps would be happy with the consequences, then it’s their business.
Maybe they should even consider making this a closed circuit event, with only pre-certified homes given access.
With over 5000 questions submitted, I’m sure they had choices on what question to ask on almost any subject. Using that theory, they could have come up with a question, instead of a gay General who wanted to make a political statement.
Not in the least Dom. I have no idea what in any of my statements could give you that idea. I have never voiced any problem at all with the question. You on the other hand have steadfastly refused to even acknowledge having a Clinton advisor asking questions at Republican debate without disclosing themselves as such, should raise an eyebrow. You have evidenced amazing ability to just ignore that part of the debate as if it’s significance was so slight as to be beneath notice. That is what concerns me and that is the only reason anyone is even having the discussion now not because of the question asked, but please continue to focus on the question.
Bones-
You point to exactly what the difference between us is. I think the political affiliation or political activities of the author of a question is only of 10th tier importance.
That is precisely what’s wrong with much of political commentary. The Left often dismisses statements on the grounds of ‘Well, he’s a neocom, or a Republican, or a Bush fan” The Right does the same, in reverse.
A lot of insightful ideas get thrown away because of that attitude. Ideas, or questions, should matter a great deal more than their author, IMO.
In this case, it’s my understanding that the man is also still a Republican, while supporting Cinton. Focusing on the questioner gets us into the very murky ground of motivation.
Did he ask the question because he supports Clinton or because he is a gay Republican?
There is a contingent of Republicans (Whitmn of NJ and Pete Abel of TMV, etc) who would like to reform the Republican Party to become more moderate.
A man can wear many hats and be loyal to more than one cause. Rather than assume out of the blue, which hat he was wearing the night of the debate, it makes absolute sense to me to ask simply if the question was worthwhile or not. Since it’ s the case that there are many gay people in the Republican party and the military, it’s not like he was speaking for himself alone. It is absolutely not true that all gays are Democrats, so why is he the enemy? Would the question have had more meti if it was asked by former Gov. Whitman?
The Democrats, in one of their debates were asked about raising taxes. What difference would it make if the question was asked by a Democrat, a Republican, or an aide to Giuliani? It was a legitimate question, because it is important to a lot of people, left and right, flue and red.
This fits into my thinking about blogs and comments on them. Way too often, commentsers attack the author of the post rather than the ideas he is issuing. Once you do that, you cut off the chance to separate his good idead from the bad, because you are separating people rather than ideas.
My opinion , whether you agree with it or not, is consistent across a broad band of issues and is far from being dependent on one incident at one debate.
So be it Dom. I don’t think your way of thinking is necessarily wrong, but I just wish you would summarily dismiss mine. To put it another way what did it matter if FEMA had a fake press conference if the questions asked were good ones? It seemed to matter a great deal. Without disclosure and without being able to take thing at face value then what are we left with. CNN should of known and disclosed the generals affiliation and this would be a non issue. There is no excuse for them not doing there jobs that I see. Since you focus on the question why complain, no one really has bashed the question have they? Just the situation. To my mind if CNN had done their job maybe we could be discussing issues rather than arguing of CNN. Wouldn’t you prefer that? Is there any doubt that this could and would stir thing up? Then why not ovoid the appearance of impropriety? It is unprofessional in the extreme at the very least.
Bones-
I acknowlege your point about the fake FEMA news conference and its broader implications.
I didn’t mean to ‘summarily dismiss’ the questions raised by those troubled by this incident. Rather, it was a matter of priorites for me.
Rather than spending a lot of time trying to get to the bottom of the man’s motivation and intent (was he speaking as a Clinton supporter or a gay Republican military man?), the question’s legitimacy was of higher priority to me.
There is another dilenna in the full diclosure of his background that you want. What would happen if his question had been truned down, and he calimed he was a Repulican shut out of his party’s deliberations? It could easily get so complicated that the ensuing debates about the debate would dwarf the debate itself.
Sorry, but while not claiming that it’ s simple (what is?), I still stick to my overall approach, across the board and in all instances. Ideas trump the pople proposing them, with due deference to nuances and exceptions, of course.
Man this place makes my head spin. Theres a near consensus, among the left leaners here, that its the question that is of most importance, and not who asks it. So why couldn’t the Dems have their debate sponsered by Fox? Oh thats right, fox isn’t “Fair and Balanced”. Yet some of these questions bordered on mocking, the answers weren’t relevant because the person asking the question wasn’t going to be persuaded anyway.
There is quite a few “moderates in their own minds” around here.
Tonto-
You bring up a whole other area worthy of dicussion: the power the networks have to set the tone and conrol the content of the debates. I see a definite difference in the tone and scope of the debates as they move from netwerk to network and moderator to moderator.
It’s kind of puzzling actually, that this power is accepted without questionm as there are other possibilities. Maybe the parties should outline the issues they want to cover and choose their own moderator, thus foregoint the town square approach. Each debate pertains to one pariy’s primary after all. It would depend on what kind of deal the networks would be receptive to.
Things being what they are, however, how a network handles it and the tone it sets affects the debate tremendously. FOX is, unforutanely all too predictable. I’m not sure FAIR and BALNCED is within anyone’s reach so as to satisfy enryone, but it makes no sense to look for it where ti definitely is not.
And BTW, a ‘moderate’ site does not require everyone to have the same moderate opinion. It’s a place for exhanging ideas of various kinds, with no boundaries set by the managers, except those of civility. I think the comment code explains ‘moderation’ quite well.
It still begs the question. Should these debates be governed by the party elites with only issues that the candidates are comfortable being brought up by friendly sources? I was under the impression we were trying to gain as much information as possible about them from as many sources as possible.
The presidency is not a cakewalk. Do we want a FEMA style debate with softball questions? Or do we want to test a candidate when he/she is a bit off-guard? Isnt’ there enough choreography of the political scene with C-span and planted questions? As I stated before, I had no problem with the tax-and-spend liberal question at the Democrats u-tube debate.
Dom with a little more checking by myself it really does seem like every person in the “real” media, including CNN finally, admits that his association should of been disclosed. The big issue isn’t the General or Hillary, but CNN. You are focused on the question. I’m not sure why because no one much cared. It wasn’t much of a question and would have, could have no effect on what the debate was for. Not for people to get to know the candidates, but for republicans to decide who they will nominate as their candidate. You can want it to mean more but that’s the reality. While it may be wrong this is not an issue that republicans are going to change a vote over.
How would the left react if the opposite happened on a Dem debate on fox? Oh that’s right, can’t trust Fox.
The candidates should be asked questions which will help us determine what type of President they will be, regardless of where we are in the election cycle and regardless of stated party affiliation (if any) of the questioner.
I already know I’m not going to agree with 100% of what any candidate says. And I don’t want a President who just spouts out what the latest opinion poll says he should. Even though there are plenty of candidates I can’t stand- and would never vote for, I can still find common ground with all of them. One of these candidates will be President (barring any late entrances by a star) and it’s important for me to understand how they all think. The way to get there is by having them answer questions important to all the people. Granted I spend more time on the front-runners than the long-shots.
Bones-
I’ve been commenting on this from a fait accompli angle: such and such happened, so, what is the significance.?
Given a do-over, i agree with you, it would have been better if the man’s full background had been disclosed. Appearnces do matter, and the appearnce of forthrightedness is very important.
That’s a lesson to take note of in the future.
Looking at this debate, which is over and done with, my position still stands.
I am repeating myself when I say that this being a Republican debate, to choose the Republican presidential candidate, is also important. I can’t come up with a solution as to who should control the content in a debate and how they should/could control it in order to reflect this Repulican-ness, and I would be interested in what ideas others propose.
I find one big stumbling block in the content control approach, and that’s the fact that the Repuclican candidates are rated also by many non-Repulicans (Independents and the uncommitted), as well as by Republicans who are not happy with the present state of the party, like the Libertarians . Unless just writing these people off is the preferred position, then opening up the debates to non-traditional topics seems to me to be important. At the very least, it shows how well the candidates can field these type of questions, an important talent to consider for the presidential contest to come.
I’m also repeating myself when I say that challenging questions (raising taxes, gun contro)
have, in fact, been asked at Dem. debates. There was no furor over these questions, however, and no one checked the background of the questioners. As far as I can tell, to this day, no one knows or cares if these questions came from Republican activists in disguise. Everyone watching, however, took note of how the candidates responded.
The importance of the host news channel and the moderator is more than evident, when we watch the character of the debates change as they move from venure to venue. It’s a problem for both parties.
If FOX is a problem for the Dems, then PBS and the balck caucus was a glaring problem for the Reps.
At least the Dems were forthright (there’s that word again) about their reasons for abstaining, instead of finding pressing engagements elsewhete..
I feel I’ve addressed every point, some twice over, so unless something new pops up, I’m done with this tipic.
Dom the thing that’s stands out to me is your acting as if it was the question people are reacting to. It is not. It is the appearance of impropriety and the obvious unprofesionalism of CNN. As to who controls the debate, whoever sponsors it. No one else really should have much to do with it, the candidates come or don’t as they wish. Just as an aside I hope you took the Dems to task for refusing to go on Fox. With your stance here I cannot conceive of any good excuse to not do so. Of course though you are far to the left you do seem honest so I figure you probably did.