While the entire right-wing blogosphere is frothing about the political interests of some of the questioners whose queries were used by CNN on that YouTube Republican debate Wednesday night (see Skippy for a roundup), Walter Shapiro of Salon was disturbed by the questions not asked:
No, what sent me into a free fall of depression was CNN's instinct for the fatuous in choosing the debate questions. It is a disgrace that in a two-hour debate (it felt longer) there was not a single question about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the powder keg in Pakistan or Iran. The fault is not with the earnest YouTubers who sent in questions. The blame entirely rests with Anderson Cooper (a debate host who seemed incapable of asking a relevant follow-up question) and his CNN cohorts, who seemed more concerned with goosing the ratings than with grasping the world that the next president will inherit. (My emphasis)
He's got it right. The world is and will continue to be a messy place once the new President takes office in January 2009, but apparently CNN would rather ask divisive questions about the Bible, abortion, and guns than about substantive issues like American foreign policy.
I watched the first half-hour and concluded that none of those mean-spirited jerks have an ounce of empathy among them. They were competing to see who could be nastier about illegal immigrants, making me wonder if all of them claim their ancestry traces back to the Mayflower or the Roanoke colony.
via Paul Krugman
Posted by Linkmeister at November 30, 2007 12:01 AM | TrackBackMcCain is good on immigration. He won't win, and his campaign finance reform stinks, but it's no good dismissing his immigration positions. It's every bit as much a division in the Republican party as embryonic stem cell research was. People like McCain and Michael Barone, are the minority, but the pro-immigration position is not undefended, in the party.
Posted by: Andrew Shimmin at December 2, 2007 09:50 AMBeyond that, I'm in no way heartened by the central Democrats position on immigration. I can't decide which party is more anti-free trade (the flip side of the same coin). Maybe both sides will get religion by November. Maybe neither will.
Posted by: Andrew Shimmin at December 2, 2007 09:56 AMI'm guessing Native Americans might consider even the passengers on the Mayflower and the colonists of Roanoke to be illegal immigrants.
Posted by: Rob_in_Hawaii at December 3, 2007 07:08 PM