DEBATE TO BE RUN BY CNN, NOT YouTube!

If you’re looking for anything revolutionary to come out of Monday night’s CNN / YouTube debate, forget about it. Outwardly teased as a debate featuring questions from the YouTube nation, it will, no doubt, strictly be a CNN / Democrat love fest. And here’s why.

Anderson Cooper, one of CNN’s resident Democrat partisans, will “moderate” the debate. John Roberts of CNN’s weeklong “CNN/YouTube Debate Preview” said (55 minutes into the show) that CNN will be choosing which questions will make it to the Contestants. That’s right, CNN, not YouTubers.

CNN Senior Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief, David Bohrman, told Los Angeles Times’ Paul Brownfield that “We will make responsible editorial decisions about what will air during the debate.” Anyone with half an honest mind knows what that means. This is a CNN love-fest…er, debate.

Another reason this won’t be a debate more open than any other is the cozy relationships between news organizations and campaigns. CNN wouldn’t jeopardize its access to a major candidate’s campaign by letting some crazed ordinary American ask an honest, probing question. Oh my God, the implications of such a thing! The real public having fair access to a presidential candidates’ debate?! Think again.

LA Times’ Brownfield said “Monday night’s debate promises at least to expose a clash of cultures, as the grungy, youth-oriented YouTube meets the buttoned-down campaign talking point.” Don’t count on it, except possibly in the initial naivety of the questioners. But CNN will sift through the questions to find enough intelligent, yet predictable, questions about universal healthcare, Darfur, Iraq, big oil, corporate profits and all the other “hot points” of the politically and generally uneducated.

One more thing you can take to the bank; the Democratic candidates will be sucking up to the misspent youths of this country big time. Will they succeed? They will barely have to try. But as much as they like to change their stores and contradict themselves, look to some candidates, maybe most, to trip over their own condescension.

JD.