Not quite the same. The forum I assume controls the rules. No point in going somewhere if the rules are set up to make you look foolish. With fair rules, I expect a politician to be able to deal with hostile questioning, especially if the question is not specifically planted against one candidate.
And I don’t see anything inconsistent about being a Log Cabin Republican and working for Hilary. There’s a bunch of Republicans I know who felt they could no longer vote Republican after the President supported enshrining discrimination against them based on their choice of sexual partners in the Constitution. These people aren’t looking for a pro-gay Republican party. Just one that isn’t actively anti-gay.
He’s one of 65 “co-chairs” for the committee, so it’s possible he really hasn’t done anything for the campaign other then let him use his name and endorse her candidacy.
Well, that doesn’t mean that I think all the questions in a debate should be advesarial.
But more seriously, I didn’t agree with the Dem boycott either.
That’s true in and of itself. Having a Democrat ask a question isn’t really a problem - but having somebody who is involved a rival campaign is a problem. You’d want to exclude those from the debate because they might ask a question just like the one this guy apparently asked.
I don’t get why the gays in the military question was unfair. Tough, yes. But unfair? Why should a question like that be excluded from a Republican debate?
I think the idea of bringing the guy down to be in the audience was a bit much, and places CNN in the position of advocating for him. That is a legitimate concern.
But the question itself was perfectly reasonable, as were all of the other questions asked by “democratic operatives”.
I think that any candidate for president whould face the music from supporters and detractors alike, so that means yes I think the Fox debate would have been a good idea. And also, hilarious.
I have to say, Hannity’s histrionics about CNN being partisan, and trying to represent themselves as fair journalists while actually advocating for a particular ideology, is warming the cockles of my balls.
There’s nothing wrong with tough questions. I haven’t really been watching the debates this year, but I get the impression that the moderators are making a big point of asking tough questions. (Sometimes to the point of being stupid and insisting on yes or no, ‘raise your hand’ answers that eschew details, as I saw Wolf Blitzer do.) But from a journalistic standpoint, I think it’s a bad idea to give air time to rival campaigns. It was indirect, since the guy wasn’t a big part of her campaign, but it could have been avoided. I’m sure someone else could have asked the same question.
Similarly, one network [I think it was Fox] aired a Republican debate over the summer, and then had Fred Thompson come on the air to comment on everybody’s performance. Everybody knew he was running for President, but since his lazy ass hadn’t declared yet, they had a transparent excuse for having him on. That was bullshit.
I understand that. But you seemed to be saying that the person should be excluded because they might ask a question like that. I don’t think that’s a valid reason for exclusion, as that question was legitimate. In fact I’d have a hard time thinking of a question that would damage a panel just in the asking.
By the way, the first part, if the person is a campaign employee and that is reasonably easy to verify, then yes. Exclude them. That’s a decent reason.
If the person was on a Democrat’s advisory board and has in the past been involved with a Republican organization (Log Cabin), isn’t that kind of evidence that they are independent?
<Faux News Mode>If the Republicans aren’t able to handle a hostile question in a debate, how can we expect them to protect us from terroists?<Faux News Mode>
No no no, people asking tough or critical questions should not be excluded at all. I guess I wasn’t clear. It’s an issue that deserves to be addressed, and the question is valid. It’s a combination of the style of question and the man’s status as being involved with an opposition candidate.
There’s no avoiding the fact that his way of asking the question was accusatory, and I think that when you give a platform in a debate to somebody who is involved with a rival campaign, you’ve sort of endorsed that campaign. And when he uses it to ask an accusatory question, it’s that much worse. People who work for the opposing parties should be avoided as questioners in one-party debates. Like I said, it’s a valid issue and I’m sure someone else on YouTube raised it. It seems CNN made an error because it looked good to have a general ask this question.
His political views don’t concern me. His involvement with the Clinton campaign does.
The worst part of the whole thing is that our “liberal” media is reporting this rather than the answers that were given to a perfectly legitimate question. I still don’t know which candidate was most forthright in protecting me from the horror of having homos defend me.
I agree with that. It does smell, regardless. I kind of manufactured something up there to disagree with you on because I’m cranky about this. Sorry!
It’s apparent that the real goal here was the dramatic moment of the gay general asking this question- as far as CNN plotting the story of these debates, which is a distasteful process as it is, they were burned badly here.
That’s ridiculous. The person answering should start “Your questions presumes that I believe the military is not professional. That’s not true.” The candidate should then go on to explain just why he thinks American service men and women will be reduced in effectiveness if gay people can serve openly in the military.
Yes, but would they? Since it was a legitimate question, its not being asked would be the bigger problem, which makes who asks it or whom they work for unimportant.
I don’t see why the moderators should force any candidate to start by reiterating an obvious point. Presumably there’s no shortage of questions on any subject - simply pick one that is appropriately phrased, rather than force candidates to open every answer with some disclaimer.
It wastes time in a debate. I’d rather have five extra seconds to hear about how someone would deal with a real situation, rather than hearing a preface about how they don’t think the military is unprofessional (which nobody’s going to admit to even if it were true). Five extra seconds per question adds up to a significant amount of time wasted.
Well the moderator isn’t forcing anyone to do anything. And you seem to be premising this on an assumption that arguing that the effectiveness of the military will be harmed by gays and lesbians serving openly isn’t the same thing as arguing that the military is unprofessional. I’d say that’s a false premise.
More importantly, you have a choice. We can either have the charade of questions from the public, in which case they might not be phrased “neutrally” or we can have a rather tedious series of questions “Should gays and lesbians be allowed to serve openly in the military.” TV seems to want the former. Honestly, I think these kind of scripted debates are an utter sham anyway.
