Your personal feelings aside concerning the “scarred” Ariana, why would those “facts” about her life be grounds for making her a perfect conduit for a “planted” question? I believe her website has been communicating with Iranians on the streets in Iran, so maybe THP was just a logical place to get a question for that country.

What I don't get is the “planted” part of everybody's criticism. A planted question is one designed by those being asked so that they may make a particular political point, and it's pretty clear there is no good motive for Obama to want this particular question asked. It in fact has a landmine quality to it that I would expect from Fox news.

I'd say there's a 50/50 chance that the Iranian asking the question was an Iranian government agent. Mousavi supporters certainly are not interested under what terms the US would accept Ahmadinejad's election. The ham-fisted supreme council, however, would love to know what it would take to make this all go away.

Huffington is just a simple way to deflect the origin of this question.

This is a concern. I believe the so called “new media” only works when their is freedom to comment on the posts. Why? Because, too many people today, read only that news that agrees with their already made up mind. Unless one can comment, there is no opportunity to offer corrections, or vet the often inacurate info in the post.

Interesting to nore, Al Jareexa English, on Youtube, used to allow, even welcome comments, but now comments are not permitted.

BTW: I have been banned from commenting on Huffington Post. It happened just like a missle attack. One moment I was pressing “post comment” the next min I was informed that I was not allowed to post, then my whole “profiel” was blown off the site, completely! The tryany of the majority rules at HP?

In my opinion the “free press” is under attack, and that makes it difficult for those who wish to live in a democratic society to do so, because they are being robbed of their “mind.”

It becomes more and more difficult to personally “vet” MSM. How can anyone believe what is in the media about Iran, today? Change is on the way? I wonder?
http://shoe08.blogspot.com/2009/01/change-is-on…

http://www.newsy.com/videos/statecraft_vs_stage…

Manipulating public opinion (and the many manipulable who at least still caress their Presidential knee pads fromtime to time) is nothing new, nor has managing the media with this Obama group.

It does make you wonder once more (after observing how Chrysler and GM bondholders were treated, in contrast to the cronyish paid-back UAW, an effective auxiliary Dem federal stake in the Detroit companies earlier) exactly what Obama learned and brought back with after, indeed, meeting with Hugo Chavez.

Now for the kicker: the liberal media has adored Obama and is already prostituting itself with hype and alarmism and willingness to advertise on behalf of government health care (rushed to give to the childish); I would definitely expect one or more extended press conferences on this issue before too much longer.

As Arianna Huffington admitted, they were informed they would be called upon by the president. That in itself is unusual, but it doesn't seem to cross the line into insidious propaganda considering they weren't told what to ask the President.

For some context, go review the types of questions Jeff Gannon, a real White House plant, would ask: http://mediamatters.org/research/200502020014

I put here in the same category as Anne Coulter…just on the other side of the spectrum.

And to that I add: “Where's his birth certificate?”

There is no proof that the question came from an 'actual iranian'.

Why would the White House plant a question that was tougher than any of the other questions being asked that day? Then why would Obama proceed not to answer a question he supposedly knew was coming ahead of time.

I've read this post and all responses twice. Where exactly is there proof that this was a planted question? If we don't have the smoking gun to prove the allegation, perhaps we just seeing more BS from right wing crackpots and a fading traditional media.

Agree DaGoat, Obama hardly nailed that response. If it was a plant, it came back and bit them a bit in the ass a bit.

If the White House would have just come out and explained their motivation behind the planted question, something to the effect of, “we just wanted to make sure that we received a question from the Iranian viewpoint and so we enlisted the support of the Huffington Post etc…. Now, they have to take the heat for their actions and the resulting loss of credibility; and so early in Mr. Obama's term too.

I'm not even bothering to click on the Hannity link, who cares, the guy's a kook.