CNN and My New Favorite Latin Phrase

I received an email from the conservative blog, Redstate, entitled "Heads need to roll at CNN". Here is the article that Redstate linked to in the email.

Our own Dan Spencer made USA Today today in an article by Jill Thompson.Only
if you check our front page, we don't have a contributor named Dan Spencer; well, we do, but he does not write under his name. You actually have to dig around on the web to find out Dan's real name. Good for USA Today for being competent.

Contrast that with CNN last night. Not only did they allow Keith Kerr's question, they invited him to the debate. Had they bothered to research, they would have discovered his connection to Hillary Clinton's campaign. He's a member of the LGBT Americans for Hillary Steering Committee and co-chair on Hillary's National Military Veterans group. He also was an active John Kerry supporter in 2004.

And last night Anderson Cooper willingly gave Mr. Kerr the Democratic activist a soapbox. Anderson has yet to apologize for either his willing participation or incompetent handling of the situation and failure to research.

The fallout from this story continues. Michelle Malkin reports today that the muslim girl that claimed that our reputation in the Muslim world has suffered as a result of the invasion of Iraq was a previous intern at CAIR. The number of non Republican questioners continues to grow each day.

For anyone not following, during Wednesday's Youtube debate hosted by CNN, several questioners turned out not to be Republicans or Independents, but in fact supporters of Democratic candidates. The most infamous was the gay general that scolded the candidates for not believing the military wasn't professional enough to serve with openly gay officers. His situation was even more peculiar because he was in the live audience and he spoke after the candidates answered his video question.

What is most embarrassing for CNN is that bloggers discovered most of the malfeasance in nearly real time. If the story is accurate, Anderson Cooper was told by Bill Bennett during the debate that bloggers had discovered the error.

To me, it really matters not whether or not CNN knew ahead of time that these questioners weren't Republicans. There are only three possible scenarios as far as this situation is concerned vis a vis CNN. They were either corrupt, incompetent, or even both...res ipsa loquitur. None of those scenarios shines anything but a terrible light on CNN. A couple months back CNN took a terrible ratings hit when when they tried to create controversy where none existed when they claimed that comments that Bill O'Reilly made about a Harlem restaurant were racist. They had a special about Iraqi insurgent snipers that many called nothing short of a snuff film. They even admitted soft balling the Hussein regime for years in order to gain access.

Suffice to say, their reputation doesn't need anymore hits. The simple fact of the matter is that heads absolutely need to roll on this and plenty of them. If we don't see heads roll, they will perpetuate the perception that this creates that they have a liberal bias. To me there is nothing to think about here. It isn't as though someone was late for a meeting or spent too much time on personal phone call one day. Several people, who weren't supposed to be asking questions at a major Presidential debate, were allowed to ask questions. Anyone who was responsible for vetting the questions and their superiors hve to be fired. There are no second chances for embarrassing the network on live television. If bloggers can figure these things out, then paid staffers have to or be removed. Like I said Res Ipsa Loquitur.

The other part of this story is the near blackout of its coverage by the rest of the media. I couldn't find anything on MSNBC. I couldn't find anything in the New York Times, There was something in the Washington Post though it is on conservative blogger's Ramesh Ponnuru's blog...not exactly top billing. I also found nothing in the Boston Globe. I could probably do this with most MSM newspapers and networks and if I had the time I would. I think you all get the idea. Most newspapers and networks have stayed relatively away from this story.

The New York Times for instance had a negative story about Iraq, Rudy Giuliani, and a story about the teacher in Sudan, on the front page. I won't say those aren't important, however a major network allowing multiple people to slip by their radar in a live debate is just as important. For their to be a near blackout of this story in the MSM...well that goes by the same Latin phrase, Res Ipsa Loquitur.