Does anyone even watch cnn anymore, other than the blame america first crowd. CNN is a joke.

Actually, a question is a question, and it shouldn't matter where the question comes from. Having said that, CNN is totally corrupt.

Thought the CNN Republican debate went rather well. I am an Independent voter and have been since 1992. The delegates should be able to answer all forms of questions from those that are going to be voting next year. There also should be no bearing on how the questions were presented or by whom. Any diverting from this would only show biasness on the Republican agenda
If the Republicans feel they were slighted due to the CNN hosting, then why don't they try some softball questions on Fox - at least they will get their viewing from a more slanted audience.

If it was not staged, then it made interesting theatre. Now it seems Don't Ask Don't Tell will be a wedge issue.
It seems CNN and other debate hosts should thoroughly check the questioners.

Strange that the only story on the national media was Giulianni sticking it to Romney over an illegal maybe working for him. Nothing about the obvious plants. Nothings' changed

Strange that the only story on the national media was Giulianni sticking it to Romney over an illegal maybe working for him. Nothing about the obvious plants. Nothings' changed

This whole CNN Debate was a setup to make Republican candidates stick to Democratic issues and to make the Repub. candidates look bad.

As others have said, either CNN is totally incompetent, or those in charge had full knowledge and set this up to embarras the candidates. There is zero middle ground here.

The fact that Democratic supporters were direcly involved tells me that either the DNC did this in concert with CNN staffers including the supposed unbiased Mr. Cooper, OR the Clinton Campaign, through the web of Democratic staffers/supporters set this up.

I am hereby calling for the revocation of CNN's license to broadcast!

Aaron
It isn't that the Republicans feel slighted...it is just another example of liberal media bias. It DOES MATTER that CNN presented these people as undecided voters....It DOES MATTER that they expect us to believe that out of 5000 posted questions they just happened to pick 5 or 6 that were easily found out to be on a Clinton steering committee (announced on her website!) supporters of Edwards and Obama and someone who works for Democrat Jane Harman. It DOES MATTER that many questions picked (Bible, Jesus and death penalty, confederate flag) had nothing to do about policy. Does it mean nothing to you that Russert asked Clinton a POLICY QUESTION during that debate and the Clinton campaign said he was being UNFAIR!!
And just for the record the Fox debate that the Republicans did was so far the most professional. No STUPID softball questions, just direct and sometimes hard hitting policy questions. And of course you remember that the Democrats refuse to do a debate on Fox...what does that tell you about them!!

As a former Democrat turned independent, I am
not surprise. I no longer watch CNN or other main stream news networks or cable news. It seems that
the news network, particularly the main stream media, have taking sides toward the extreme left and news objectivity is no longer the norm. Honesty in the news is the casualty in today's political correctness environment.

Aaron misses the point of most of the informed criticism of the CNN. When a debate with this format is advertised as questions coming from undecided REPUBLICAN voters and then we find out they are anything but, and the question's content reflects this, it is essentially an entertaining joke and the whole event should not be taken seriously.
They had almost 5,000 questions submitted, so any rational serious person picking which questions should be used could have used the advertised criteria and chose appropriate questions....without being "softballs" as you state. This would not be difficult.

Media Matters...what a joke. CNN you cant be serious about including them in your story!!!!Media Matters has long since been clearly identified as a Democrat front group...I'm sure whatever they have to say will be totally unbiased...NOT...what a sham and a what bunch of deceitful and fraudulent snake oil salesmen the media and the once great Democrat party has eroded to. CNN you will pay the financial price as your reputation plummets and you are exposed as the democrat hacks you obviously are.

Lets see, a Republican Debate prior to a republican primary is so registered republican voters can ask questions of their candidates prior to them voting for who will represent republicans in the national elections next November. The same holds true for Democrat Debates and democrat candidates. Once both parties primaries select the party candidates, THEN Presidential Debates ensue and at that time questions from across the political ideological spectrum are introduced. Clearly CNN violated this basic premise and it appears they did it with malicious and deceptive intent as all the questions were clearly not issues that conservatives think are important, but rather those that liberals would like to use to mock conservatives. CNN obviously thinks that the YOU the people are stupid and that YOU could not possibly catch them in their obvious attempts to deceive us. tsk tsk tsk.

I would be interested in seeing a comparison of the YouTubers that were selected to ask questions of the Democratic presidential candidates to show that there was truely a bias involved. I am a conservative, but the article never referenced any bias in the Democratic debate.

It is my opinion that the majority of Americans think CNN is a total joke to begin with. Is there anyone with brains still watching it? I doubt it!! This type of political shananigans just drives home the point that our National News Media is so dammed bias that its not funny! Thank God for Fox News and the Internet! CNN is a BAD JOKE on the American people!

This entire discussion is ridiculous! It shouldn't make any difference what party the person asking the question is affiliated with, nor should they have to make it known before asking the question. A president is suppose to represent all the people, Democrat, Republican or Independent and be able to handle any and all questions truthfully. In addition, if a presidential candidate can't handle a question from someone from an opposing party they shouldn't be president. What happens when they are ask a question from an opposition government official? This goes for any and all presidential candidates, Republican, Democrat or Independent. It just proves to me that these "presidential hopefuls" have narrow and closed minds and don't deserve to hold the office of President. CNN is not to blame, it is the politicians themselves.

Republican's wake up....I am a Demoncrat,and I

stopped watching CNN in 1992.....it has always

been 100% Biased, and I hate biased news....might

as well move to Moscow....you have no one but

yourself to blame....besides the last thing your

candidate's should do is another CNN debate....

time to wake up and face the real world...they

have had the top position at the headquarters

changed five times since Jan 2001, and they

still cannot stop the loss of viewers....they

just don't get it....never will

the point is that we didn't see anonymous arepublican ringers asking difficult questions at the Dem youtube debate.

that's what makes it unfair, not the questions themselves.

the double standard.

Once again, shame on CNN and Democrats involved
in planting questions!

Because of the continued efforts by the Democrat party and its minions (CNN) to portray Republicans in a less than favorable light, as evidenced by the questions and the planted questioners at the YouTube debate, it is a wonder how anyone could ever consider trusting these liberal Democrats to run this wonderful country of ours ever again.

There is always wrong being done by both sides, but the liberal Democrats along with the help of the liberal media (CNN) seem only concerned with regaining power and not for what's best for this great country and its people and will say, do and distort facts to hoodwink the American public into believing their pathetic agenda.

We have seen, once again, the very worst of what the Democrat party and the liberal media (CNN) can do to influence an upcoming election and the candidates involved by stacking the deck in their favor through one of their biased debate formats with liberal questions and ringers asking them.

Steve D.

Don't blame CNN. Republican contenders need only look in the mirror to assign blame. You demonstrated poor judgment in trusting an entertainment station of dubious credibility to run a significant event. Why Republicans would believe that CNN was capable of demonstrating the integrity and professionalism necessary to run a debate is beyond me. But don't blame the incompetent CNN for your flawed decisions. You should have known better than to hire clowns to preside over a serious forum.

""It shouldn't make any difference what party the person asking the question is affiliated with, nor should they have to make it known before asking the question. A president is suppose to represent all the people, Democrat, Republican or Independent and be able to handle any and all questions truthfully.""

I would completely agree with you if this was a presidential debate. It was not though. It was a Primary debate for Republicans to choose their candidate for the general election. The Republicans and Democrats have a right to question the candidates on the issues that matter to them.

Once the primaries are over though I think their should be a presidential debate where the only questions asked come from politcal operatives on the other side. That would be really entertaining :)

Can you imagine the stink that would have been raised if Fox had allowed a Republican operative to participate in a Democratic debate in this way? As some have already said, it is telling that Republicans are wiling to go on CNN but Democrats can't appear on Fox. If they can't stand up to Fox, how are they going to handle iran?

dbc, I couldn't agree with more. I think you said it all so very well, my friend, especially, "knowing better than to hire clowns to preside over a serious forum". Clowns they were, indeed!!
Bob, I would agree with you if CNN had followed the very same format and procedures for asking questions as they did when they held the You Tube Democrat forum debate, but THEY DIDN'T!! To knowingly bring in or entertain questions from "KNOWN" democrat or liberal voters violates the authenticity of their motives to provide a non-biased forum for conservative or republican voters to ask their specific questions of their potential candidates. CNN made sure that only democrat or liberal leaning voters asked the questions in their sponsored YouTube debate with their candidates. Pretty one sided don't you think?

Yet one more example of liberal media bias...CNN opps! were sorry we helped the left by allowing left wing plants to ask loaded questions and get the last word by commenting on the quality of the answer..Fox news (the supposed right wing media) would never attempt to ruin their own credibility like CNN just did...Even a half assed attempt to check on the askers of the questions would have revealed that they had affiliations with the democratic party and were not (undecided voters) as they were portrayed. Thats what was agreed apon in advance...thats not how the democrats are treated by any media outlet...At least they faced these ridiculous questions unlike the dems who ran from Fox news in fear of balanced (without liberal bias) news. Over all, intellegent voters will see that for what it was and vote agianst those who would cheat and try and fool the viewer/voter...Yes there is stupid people who will not see through the fraud and they will vote democrat because they tell them what they want to hear...and thanks to CNN they sound slicker and they will vote for the moraly bankrupt democrats...but this is not a new strategy!

I am disgusted at your (and the rest of the
hard-right's) coverage of the debate. Instead
of giving the public some analysis, you
guys are obsessed with whether or not there was a
plant, or whether or not some of the questions came from Democratic supporters.

First off, I thought the substance was excellent. There were many questions about immigration, spending and the war. What else were you guys expecting? Truly, I could care less whether the guy who asked the gun question was a card-carrying brady member, whether
the guy who asked immigration was a lefty liberal, whether the people asking about spending were lefties or rights. I simply couldn't care less. In fact, one
of the questions re spending was from Grover Norquist. The point is, this is why people like me, who do care about issues I mentioned above, simply have a hard time pulling the lever for a GOP candidate. It's not the candidates, its the coverage form the far-right. To make clear, I don't consider the Washington Times as far right as some of the other fanatics (Michael "i can't stop hating on muslims" Savage, and Michelle "I need to get deported" Malkin). I
think most of your policy positions are right, and I like the overall tone. But attacking CNN and salivating over whether they did a perfect job... that's something that should be left to blood-thirsty vultures like Michael Savage or Michelle Malkin.

Second, I think the obsession w/ CNN is because they did so well. I mean, almost 5 million viewers for a GOP debate. Instead of talking about the substantive issues, and debating them, you guys have been pandering to the far right elements, trying everything you can to put CNN down.

I mean, I didn't see anything on the Washington Times about the fact that Karl Rove just mentioned that the Bush Administration didn't hurry Congress w/ the war vote (as it occured in October). He claimed that it was Congress who wanted to do the vote, which is utterly
false (Even Andrew Card on MSNBC's Scarborough said this charge is false). Why not talk about that?

Why not talk about the new allegations against
Giuliani. Why not talk about how Huckabee is kicking some major behind, or that Romney and McCain are also showing signs of some comeback (okay, not Romny - he's always been ahead).

This is what I want to hear. Not a bunch of crybabies whining about CNN. I wouldn't be surprised if the Democratic you-tube debate earlier featured questions from GOPers. I wondered if that hateful vile creature
Malkin did an invetigation on that.

- Disgusted WA Times reader

This is far from the first time that CNN has done stuff like this. In 1992, after the VP debate, the first question that came out of the CNN reporter's mouth after the debate was a question about how Admiral Stockdale did? The most charitable thing you could factually state about Stockdale is that he finished the debate. His performance was terrible. Yet the persons that they asked both stated that he did okay. Obviously, both the reporter and the "respondees" had been primed to talk about Stockdale; probably because Ted Turner liked Ross Perot and wanted to try to help Perot. Instead they made CNN look foolish.
That little episode really opened up my eyes about just how much distortion really goes in the television media, and it's not just CNN. I can cite many other examples, but this one will do okay. The written press is a little better but they have their agendas also. Is it any wonder, then, that the American public distrusts the news media?

CNN did it on purpose. They knew what they were doing, and they DIDN'T CARE about the political fallout. After all, it's not on the evening news, which is too busy covering a crazy-like-a-fox "bomb attempt" on Hillary HQ (She had to do SOMETHING to take the heat off of CNN!)

NOBODY in the MSM is covering it. One line of mention on Drudge; nothing on CNN.com, or CBSNews.com, or foxnews.com. Nothing about it on the evening "news".

Limbaugh, talk radio, and the bloggers; they're all over it. But if the MSM refuses to break the story, then CNN "wins" by 86% of the debate audience getting no knowledge of their chicanery.

what happened to CNN? lost objectivity in both politics and the environment, entertainment and sports are ok though. you would think the "C" in CNN is synonomous with "C" in Clinton. wonder if anyone knows how to look up how much of CNN stock belongs to Clinton? Aaron ~ it does matter, but CNN only matters to die hards, kind of like your home town sports team that continually gets smoked playing any team of subtsance, they keep believing it will turn around. Well, stop believing ~ time to pull the stock, CNN is no home town team.

Idea for the next Ringling Bros. CNN Youtube debate: Get Carville, Begalla, and Franken to dress up in drag and pretend to be "undecided GOP voters." Maybe this time no one will notice, Anderson, and you can play dumb again! The typical Dem voter will love and praise the ingenuity of the dishonesty because it could harm the evil Republican party. CNN can again plead ignorance on doing a one click Google search and planted questions, and the GOP candidates will continue their spineless march toward moderate suicide. Send in the clowns.