2008: CNN's Bogus Debate

Hillary Clinton did a great job handling the ridiculous “diamonds or pearls” question that finished the fracas in Las Vegas.

But you won't be entirely surprised to learn that there have been many complaints that the question was frivolous, trivial, stupid and sexist.

And, it turns out, premeditated.

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder reported that “Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred ‘diamonds or pearls’ at last night’s debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.” Ambinder writes:

“Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN,” Luisa writes. “I was asked to submit questions including “lighthearted/fun” questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance.”

Sam Feist, the executive producer of the debate, said that the student was asked to choose another question because the candidates had already spent about ten minutes discussing Yucca Mountain.

“When her Yucca mountain question was asked, she was given the opportunity to ask another question, and my understand[ing] is that the [diamond v. pearls] [question] was her other question,” Feist said. “She probably was disappointed, but we spent a lot of time with a bunch of different candidates on Yucca Mountain, and we were at the end of the debate.”

Why is this a surprise? As a for-profit entertainment company, CNN's mission is to please viewers in an effort to please advertisers. Just as all television news shows are required to conclude on an up note, with a humorous human interest story, an uplifting anecdote or, as Charles Gibson did the other night, a tip o' the hat to God, CNN can't be expected to go into a block of drug commercials after, say, a sour question about the 282,600 Americans who have died since the beginning of Desert Storm because they were denied access to health care.

Although CNN may have set the lowest standard yet, it's the Democrats themselves, by putting the debates in the hands of commercial broadcasters, who are to blame for what has turned out to be a nearly unmitigated disaster.

Wolf Blitzer began this round by trying to goad Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama into a slug fest, in the process not only shutting out, for the most part, the other candidates, but also shutting down entirely any serious discussion of issues for the first half hour of the show.

CNN would have been pleased if substance had never been allowed interrupt the proceedings at all. Blitzer announced sternly at the opening that the candidates would not be permitted to stray off the topic of the specific question they were asked, and during the debate it was hard not to see why: Most of the best moments came when the candidates resisted or ignored the rigid attempt to hold them to the network's agenda.

During the first segment, for example, John Edwards veered off from Blitzer's obsession with the Clinton-Obama catfight to talk about what is to be done about poverty. Bill Richardson expressed his annoyance with not being permitted to speak until nearly a half an hour into the evening by taking the opportunity when it came to introduce himself to the audience. Later in the program, Richardson slipped his shackles again, this time to talk about renewable energy. Near the end of the show, Biden got applause for refusing to answer a CNN-crafted question -- by now the audience was siding with the candidates against the network -- and insisting that he would answer an audience query instead.

Dennis Kucinich was the least intimidated by CNN's bullying, but ignored and diminished as he was by the network, he had little choice but to be aggressive if he was to be heard at all. The congressman was completely blocked out of the opening segment until the very end, when all the candidates were asked whether they would support the party's nominee in the general election. The rest of the panel allowed that, yes, they would, but Kucinich said, "Only if they oppose war as an instrument of policy." Unusually prolix for a politician who is noted usually for being admirably direct. A simple "no" would have sufficed.

Kucinich was ignored by the moderator throughout most of the evening, it's hard not to think because of his tendency to speak bluntly about real issues. For example, during a run of questions on education, Blitzer asked Kucinich on what issues he disagreed with organized labor, then moved back to education with the next candidate. On the singularly stupid question of licenses for undocumented immigrants, Kucinich shifted the topic to the far more important question of what to do about NAFTA. Kucinich did get a direct question on trade with China, and his answer included the point that maybe the country would do well to elect officials, like himself, who are right on crucial matters such as war and trade from the start, instead of having to clean up mistakes later.

The first question to the panel from the public asked what the candidates would do to prevent an attack on Iran, but CNN let answer only the aspirants who are "reliable" on the issue -- Clinton, Obama, Edwards and Biden. Not Kucinich, of course, the candidate who is the most forthright on the topic of imperial aggression, but also not Richardson, who has a thoughtful position on dealing with Iran.

Contrast the amount of attention CNN gave to the Clinton-Obama tiff with the network's attempt to limit the debate on Iran.

Best laid plans, though: Joe Biden injected an untoward element into the discussion with an answer that probably surprised even him:

"If Bush takes the country to war in Iran without an act of Congress," Biden said, "then he should be impeached!"

On Iraq, Richardson was allowed to say he would end the occupation by 2010, but Kucinich was not given the opportunity to state his position (he'd get us out before the end of next year). At one point, Blitzer began to address Kucinich: "You were the only one who voted against the Patriot Act..."

"That's because I read it," Kucinich interjected, to huge applause.

After talking about the legislation, the Ohio representative turned to the topic of preventing an attack on Iran. As Blitzer tried to cut him off, Kucinich said, "Impeach them now!," the only time he was permitted to speak during the debate's entire second hour.

Despite CNN's hostility to ideas, the debate in the desert did shed some light on the campaign. Resisting as best she could her inclination to bob-and-weave, Hillary Clinton reestablished herself as the candidate to beat, though when she does answer substantively, as on Iraq, Iran and health care, she raises a question in the mind of a Democrat whether she is a suitable nominee for his party. Obama once again demonstrated that, despite his occasional eloquence, he is not ready for prime time. And Edwards, though he delivered another solid performance in the debates, failed again to show the fiery idealism that inspired so many in 2004. Solid is only a letter away from stolid.

The big winners this time were Richardson and Kucinich. New Mexico's governor continues to give common sense a good name. With his self-deprecating humor, reasonableness, and wealth of experience, you'd want him for vice president if that wouldn't keep him from being secretary of state. Kucinich, who can come off a little self-righteous, was right on the money this time. And it didn't hurt his performance that the audience in the room turned against CNN as the evening wore on. I'm told that when you listen to the debate on the radio, Kucinich wins every time.

Chris Dodd continued to be a solid presence in this campaign, not the lightweight his career as a journeyman Senator might have led you to expect. And Biden, while not living up to his promise in the comic relief department, has delivered some of the best lines of the campaign.

It is to be hoped that the Democrats will learn from this debacle. Against the Republicans, a format that permits "journalists" to confine the candidates to sound bites and "Lightning Rounds" about documents for the undocumented and false choices between freedom and security, the Democrats will lose every time.

On AfterDowningStreet after the debate the other night, anti-war activist David Swanson wrote:

A serious debate would begin by asking each candidate (including Mike Gravel, who was locked out of the room) what he or she would do if elected president. Thursday's debate in the opening 30 minutes had me longing for even the level of honesty and substance of the MSNBC debate hosted by Keith Olbermann in Soldier Field some months back, at which Olbermann managed the superhuman feat of asking things like "Would you cancel NAFTA?"

Swanson points out that "Biden also said he had a plan to end the war that could begin the day he becomes president, a promise made by most of the candidates on the stage." Any journalist worth his salt might have been moved to ask what that plan is.

If an intelligent moderator were asking the questions at these debates, the fact that the Senate now faces a vote on another $50 billion for the occupation would have come up, and the fact that neither Biden nor Obama nor Clinton nor Dodd is willing to filibuster it would have been brought up. Instead, the entire debate included no mention of Wednesday's vote in the House or the upcoming vote in the Senate. A moderator who loves to catch candidates in even the most trivial contradictions had not one word to say about the topic of funding an occupation they all claim to want to end.

Instead, it's "diamond and pearls." The only up side comes from contemplating the staff meeting at which CNN is planning the upcoming debate between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Wouldn't fairness require, someone will argue, that the cross-dressing former New York mayor, who knows more than a little about accessorizing, get the same opportunity as Sen. Clinton to weigh in on this important issue?

See also, Some debate advice: How to survive the political season by Martin Schram (Capitol Hill Blue, 2007-11-21).