General Punks GOP & CNN
28 November 2007 10:18 pm by Taylor Marsh
It was a beautiful thing. Watching the Republicans respond to a gay veteran
Special Forces man asking a question about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That man also happens to be a Clinton supporter. It will not
be forgotten at CNN headquarters or GOP central. It’s unlikely any Republican
will forget this travesty. What a colossal collapse; worse than I could imagine.
Fred Thompson even let fly a negative ad during the debate. But Romney getting dressed
down by McCain on torture really showed the craven callousness of Slick Mitt
who is one of the most contemptible conservative caricatures ever to campaign
for higher office. One very depressed
Republican from the Weekly Standard blogged the bottom line.
So, a good night for for the lowest denominator, a bad night for the GOP.
America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders,
Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well
as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went
to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in
my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for
an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The
media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music
candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man
on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that
he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters
on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist
University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
The people who put together the YouTubes seemed out of the 19th century. A
question about the Confederate flag. Abortion battle on who should be thrown
in jail if they can get it outlawed. What about the doctor who performed the abortion,” asked the young woman.
It was a race to the bottom from the beginning. Not only that, but CNN got
punked.
Retired Brigader General Keith Kerr, who asked the question about Don’t ask,
Don’t tell, is a known Clinton supporter and is not a secret, but CNN never checked and obviously didn’t know. CNN
responded afterwards, with Anderson Cooper doing his best at the end, but
the damage had been done.
UPDATE: CNN later learned that retired brigadier general Keith Kerr served
on Clinton’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender steering committee.CNN Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of the debate, David Bohrman,
says, “We regret this incident. CNN would not have used the General’s
question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate.”
But the answer to the question, which came first from Duncan Hunter was an
outrageous insult to all of our troops. Hunter actually said that Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell should stay in place because our military is made up of Judeo-Christian
conservative soldiers who must have rules that comport with their values. I’ll
offer the exact quote when the transcript is done. It was an appalling insult,
including to many of you who read this blog. I was stunned. It was very obvious that none of them knew what to say to this fine veteran.
Oh, and by the way, Rudy was asked the question about billing some far out
agency for his trips. He said, hey, no biggie. Anderson said, okay. Journalism
at its finest.
UPDATE: Huckabee polled as the winner, if you can say anyone won this disaster.
