The CNN/YouTube Debate Update

As has been duly noted elsewhere, here is a CNN story, "Funny, poignant questions pour in for GOP debate" dated just this past Monday (11/26), in which CNN Vice President, David Bohrman made it quite clear that the specific intention of the hosts of Wednesday night's debate was for Republican questioners to ask the Republican candidates questions.

Here is exactly what Bohrman said on topic in the story, just a few days ago:

"This debate is to let Republican voters pick from among their eight candidates," said David Bohrman, Washington bureau chief and senior vice president for CNN. "We are trying to focus mostly on questions where there are differences among these candidates."

Bohrman also told "The Caucus (ht: ProteinWisdom)," the blogger for the New York Times that they would weed out any "gotcha" questions.

Both claims were utterly and completely untrue.

We now know that a significant number of the few selected questioners, from as many as 5,000 YouTube video submissions, were submitted by out-and-out Democrat plants, and even one aired question was by a former CAIR intern, all with no other purpose than to hurl ambush questions at the candidates, and that a minimum amount of research on the part of the CNN producers and researchers would have quickly revealed those connections to them.

At Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds correctly calls it "a failure of professionalism," noting, as others have, that YouTube is, after all, owned by Google!

So, what happened, Dave? Who in production and/or research dropped the ball? Who, if anyone, was uhhhh . . . Googling?

Over the years, we have seen CNN in various outrageous iterations, including having experienced the disgusting accusation by the former President of CNN news, Eason Jordan (in Davos) -- who ultimately had to resign -- over falsely accusing the U.S. military of intentionally killing reporters in Iraq out of anger! Now CNN has attempted to skew the nomination process on both sides, within two weeks.

Are they trying to outdo Dan Rather?

The CNN story on Monday ended as follows:

CNN's political unit is keeping the questions a secret, but those selecting them say viewers should be prepared for presentations that are funny, questions that are poignant and a format that is unprecedented for the GOP.

Yep.

Hey, maybe what they really meant to say was "funny" questions, and unprecedented presentations.

(Our original post, here.)