I smell a big bad Wolf.
It was reported by the Drudge Report two days before Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate that CNN warned Wolf Blitzer to keep his proverbial paws off Hillary Clinton. He was not to attack her if she flip-flopped from earlier statements or focus on the front-runner as a person who needs to be brought down and destroyed. It just goes to show you once again that fair is a word that has no chance of survival in this election.
Wolf strategically cut off the members of the Hillary-called “boys club” with “thank yous,” “okays” or “alrights” anytime they ventured too close to a true revelation about Hillary’s voting record or if they, god forbid, were on the verge of equal air time, speaking as much as Hillary.
In trying to curb any unfair front-runner attack formations, Wolf allowed Hillary to speak more than anyone else, rarely interrupted her and cut off Dennis Kucinich anytime he spoke the truth about her past.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a president who actually gets it right the first time around?” Kucinich asked the audience referring to Hillary’s vote for the Iraq War, which earned him a surprisingly thunderous applause from the pro-Hillary audience. Kucinich wasn’t called on again.
It’s understandable that the media, after seeing the devastation of the Bush Administration, would want to endorse a Democratic candidate they feel can win and one that they trust. But guys, at least wait until the primaries are over. Let the people decide for themselves. Every time Wolf would cut a candidate off — a good two to three minutes before he would have cut off Hillary — I wondered if I’d missed the meeting in which equal air time was thrown out the window.
One CNN anchor asked Hillary what she meant when she said her education at Wellesley prepared her for the “boys club of presidential politics,” and if she was exploiting the fact that she is a woman.
“I’m not exploiting anything at all, I’m not playing the gender card, I’m trying to play the winning card,” she said. “People aren’t attacking me because I’m a woman, they’re attacking me because I’m ahead. As Harry Truman famously said, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and I feel very comfortable in the kitchen, so I’m going to stay.”
The question and answer part of the debate was just as bad as CNN’s planned questions by the anchors. The last question of the night by an audience member (and, surprise, surprise, for Hillary) was, “do you prefer diamonds or pearls?”
Hillary said she wouldn’t be accused of flip-flopping on this issue: “I want both.”
I’m hoping when Anderson Cooper moderates the next debate, the Republican YouTube debate, he will offer equal airtime to all of the boys in the rival club.
Rudy should not be off limits for attacks and (I’d never thought I’d hear myself say it) even Fred Thompson should get a shot to speak his mind.
To watch the debates you can go
here. It's uploaded in parts, but after you watch the first one, the rest of the parts are labeled the same, so you can either type it in or find it in the right column.
