By Her Reply, Hillary Obviously Had Seen The Diamonds or Pearls Question BEFOREHAND - CNN rigged it

[Dems Will Win]

DIAMONDS OR PEARLS?? BOTH, DEFINITELY BOTH! (see that string of pearls at the top?)

Was Hillary the only one to see the questions beforehand, or did they all see them??

This is totally rigged, Maria Luisa made up the question but CNN must have showed it beforehand to Clinton, obvious from her prepared reply.

FROM MARIA'S MY SPACE PAGE:

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.

"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."

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/diamond_v_pearl_student_blasts_1.php

MARIA PARRA SANDOVAL (ph): Maria Parra Sandoval (ph), and I'm a UNLV student. And my question is for Senator Clinton.

This is a fun question for you. Do you prefer diamonds or pearls?

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: Now, I know I'm sometimes accused of not being able to make a choice. I want both.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

I'm sick of all this question planting by the Clinton campaign and their cohorts at CNN. They do this because they think she will lose to Romney or Giuliani if she is the nominee.

PLEASE RECOMMEND TO GIVE THIS STORY SOME LEGS!

[flvegan]

1. Uh, oh

:popcorn:

[Mass]

2. On what do you base your accusations?

[Dems Will Win]

5. She had such a great canned answer to such an unusual question, that's how

Plus Luisa said she handed in her questions days before...

I asked: did the other candidates see the questions beforehand. In the YouTube Event CNN showed all the questions beforehand to the cadidates as well.

This has to stop! THis is not America!

[Mass]

12. Yep, great imagination.

[Matariki]

38. Like her or hate her, Hillary Clinton is very good at thinking on her feet.

And 'both' is hardly a 'great canned answer' to that particular question.

[ccpup]

7. an admirable imagination

is my guess. Oh, and more than a smidgen of rabid, foaming at the mouth Clinton Hatred thrown in for good measure.

And obviously a bit of time on his/her hands.

[Dems Will Win]

56. CNN apologized in 2003 for planting questions with students in 2003!

It's SOP!

What viewers at home did not know, however, is that Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked about this wanted to pose an entirely different question — but CNN “encouraged” her to go with the “diamonds or pearl” question.

Marc Ambinder reports on Luisa’s comments in response to criticism she received after the event. Apparently, she wanted to ask about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, but CNN pushed her in a different direction.

“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.” <…>

“CNN ran out of time and used me to “close” the debate with the pearls/diamonds question. Seconds later this girl comes up to me and says, “you gave our school a bad reputation.’ Well, I had to explain to her that every question from the audience was pre-planned and censored. That’s what the media does. See, the media chose what they wanted, not what the people or audience really wanted. That’s politics; that’s reality. So, if you want to read about real issues important to America–and the whole world, I suggest you pick up a copy of the Economist or the New York Times or some other independent source. If you want me to explain to you how the media works, I am more than happy to do so. But do not judge me or my integrity based on that question.”

It’s probably worth noting that CNN has played fast-and-loose before. Remember this one from 2003?

A college student who asked the Democratic presidential candidates at a debate whether they preferred the PC or Mac format for their computers says the question was planted by CNN.

The news network acknowledged Tuesday that a producer went “too far” in telling Brown University student Alexandra Trustman what to ask.

Josh Marshall concludes, “Can we just close down CNN?”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13619.html

Here is CNN's confession and apology for 2003:

CNN says it went 'too far' in framing student's question

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) -- A college student who asked the Democratic presidential candidates at a debate whether they preferred the PC or Mac format for their computers says the question was planted by CNN.

The news network acknowledged Tuesday that a producer went "too far" in telling Brown University student Alexandra Trustman what to ask.

CNN televised the debate, co-sponsored by the nonprofit Rock the Vote organization, last week. It was billed as an event geared to the interests of young people.

CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said the cable network regrets the producer's actions. She would not identify the employee.

"In an attempt to encourage a lighthearted moment in this debate, a CNN producer working with Ms. Trustman clearly went too far," she said. All of the other questions from the audience originated from the person asking them, she said.

In an editorial written for the Brown Daily Herald, Trustman said she was called the morning of the debate and given the topic of the question CNN producers wanted her to ask.

Trustman said she was "confused by the question's relevance," and constructed her own question "about how, if elected, the candidates would use technology in their administrations."

But when she arrived in Boston for the debate, Trustman wrote, "I was handed a note card with the Macs and PCs version of Clinton's boxers or briefs question" and told she couldn't ask her question "because it wasn't lighthearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions."

She referred to a 1992 student forum where Bill Clinton was asked what kind of underwear he preferred.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/11/cnn.question.ap/

[seemslikeadream]

3. Well now isn't this special

Does anyone KNOW Hilly connection to the Diamond industry?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. Great plant question for Rudi at the Neofuck debates...

...look how happy and at home he is all dressed up -- not that there's anything wrong with that. Not at all.

[hlthe2b]

6. Put a warning on your post before you include a full sized photo

of that thing!

And, you might just back up your accusation, while you are at it, unless you just want to antagonize the Clinton camp. :eyes:

[silverojo]

65. The Clinton camp gets antagonized by everything

If you so much as fart at home while Hillary's on your TV screen, they want to crucify you. :eyes:

[Fresh_Start]

8. You make such a compelling argument

no facts at all.

If you were to take a random poll of 100 people on the street, who do you think might have considered the pearls v diamonds question? I'm guessing its the women in general because traditionally (in recent history), its typically been females wearing jewelry.

[kenfrequed]

62. Right

Because it was such a relevant question anyhow.

I am very glad that there was time to throw such an absurd question at Hillary during a debate where some candidates barely got 5 minutes in.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

9. EDITED OUT RESPONSE.

:rofl:

[Bolo Boffin]

10. Oh, yeah, NO ONE could come up with that line on the fly.

:eyes:

[Dems Will Win]

11. I agree! It was the People Accuse Me of Not Being Able to Make Choices - too obvious, gave it away

[Bolo Boffin]

64. See, I was being sarcastic.

When I heard the question, that was actually the first response that popped into my mind. "Why choose when I don't have to? Both!" Hillary just framed it a different way.

She didn't hear the question beforehand. She just knows how to put spin on the softball when it gets tossed her way.

[Bucky]

13. Has even Clinton's most vociferous critic ever said she wasn't witty on her feet?

The woman is poised. She's proven before that she can demonstrate boiler-plate self deprecatory humor. The idea that such an easy question had to have a canned response (when the response was so obvious anyway) is absurd.

The OP clearly has no knowedge of how to be a good public speaker.

[Dems Will Win]

14. I am actually a political consultant and teach candidates how to have prepared replies

So I know a hell of a lot about how debates can have prepared answers. Showing the questions beforehand, as CNN did before the YouTube debate and obviously here is a big no-no in local races and I'm shocked CNN is doing it at all.

You don't think that the candidates should be showed the questions before the dabate or do you. THat is the real question here.

THis is not America, it has to stop!

[pnwmom]

16. You're accusing on the basis of nothing -- what's your agenda?

Your suspicions don't equal evidence.

What is really odd is that you focus on this particular question, a "nothing" question, that would have been easy for HRC or any smart thinker to answer with some kind of wisecrack. In the broad scheme of things, this question is a creampuff. HRC could have answered it in her sleep.

[Dems Will Win]

34. Here is more on the changing of the abortion question and CNN posting it before it was even asked

CNN Caught Planting Questions and Reporting on Debate Events Before They Happen



This screen capture was taken less 5 minutes after the candidates had stopped answering the "abortion" question.

For those who didn't see the debate, an audience member asked a question of the candidates amounting to "What will you look for in a Supreme Court appointee?" Before the first candidate was able to answer, a CNN moderator interrupted to ask the candidate to include his stance on abortion in his answer.

Video of the question is here on CNN's site for now. (You can hear Biden laughing in background at the absurdity of asking for an audience question and then changing it when it wasn't what CNN wanted)

This obvious manipulation of the audience member's question was made more understandable when I looked at the CNN front page and saw their lead story, updated before the question had been asked.

This could, of course, be the result of CNN having agreed with the audience member beforehand on what her question would be, and the questioner accidentally or purposefully modifying her question into what turned out to be a more interesting query. As all of the candidates' stances on Roe v. Wade are well known, CNN might not be going out on a limb by stating they all agreed ahead of time, but if that's the case, it still doesn't seem to meet journalistic standards. Regardless, it's a very revealing peek into the workings behind CNN's debates and reporting, and puts into doubt the value of audience-sourced questions.

[pnwmom]

36. Here's a reason why that doesn't bother me either, although CNN could

have been more open about it in advance.

If CNN hadn't vetted the questions, and put some order to them and made sure they covered a number of different areas that would be of interest to people all over the rest of the country, we could have been treated to too many questions on Yucca Mountain, the Bureau of Land Management, and mining -- all issues of high interest to Nevada residents but less so to the general population.

This would be true in any debate like this; the real possibility of an over-focus on local issues.

[Truth2Tell]

48. The moderator could always take a pass on

a quesion if the topic had already been covered. But hey, we wouldn't want those real actual people asking real actual questions about issues they actually care about would we.

No no no, it's much more useful to democracy to ask about diamonds and pearls than "over focus" on local issues. :eyes:

[pnwmom]

52. That's exactly what happened. They took a pass on the woman's

Yucca Mountain question, since the topic had already been covered, and asked her if she would like to ask her pearls and diamonds question. And she said yes.

Then she was embarrassed by all her friends asking why she asked such a dumb question. But it was HER question, SHE wrote it, and no one FORCED her to ask it.

[Truth2Tell]

58. They covered Yucca Mountain in the debate?

I must have missed that...?

[pnwmom]

59. Yes, they did, and more than one candidate talked about it. n/t

[A-Schwarzenegger]

15. Which is most silliester, the question, the answer, or this thread?

[Spike89]

27. I can't make up my mind, can I have all three? NT

[A-Schwarzenegger]

40. You can have two. Learn to share.

[TAZller]

17. You are right....

CNN is planting softball questions AND giving her advance warning of the softball question so that she may spend time carefully contemplating and then delivering a poitically crafty and election winning answer so she may steal the nomination and be best positioned to loose the election. It is so obvious from the way she answered....we must spread this fact to all that don't see it as obvious...because it is so obvious that it is true.... Obviously!

Is there a way to give negative Rec's to a post?

[SaveOurDemocracy]

18. I think you just did ...

Stoopid, huh?

[pointblank]

60. And people wonder why the pukes keep winning...

The other side has no synergy. :-(

[RC]

19. So, did anyone think to check MySpace?

"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."

[SaveOurDemocracy]

20. LOL ...

the link? and we should believer her, why?

[Audio_Al]

50. LInk is now set to PRIVATE, but she is a cute little girl.

http://www.myspace.com/maria_luisa_rocks

[Joanne98]

21. It's true and we should have known CNN would never allow us to have a serious debate!

[Dems Will Win]

24. Exactly, we know they let candidates see the questions (all of them) before the YouTube debate

THe real problem here is when will CNN stop doing this. Clearly they let the candidates, I assume all of them, see the pool of questions beforehand. We know they did it before YouTube, did CNN do it again here?

That is the real issue. We need to make them stop!

[Cerridwen]

22. As a long time wearer of tinfoil hats...I gotta tell ya,

you might want to loosen yours a bit. It might be cutting off some blood flow. Tinfoil doesn't breathe well so there may be some overheating involved too.

[FreeState]

23. I find your use of photo's sexist and homophobic

they have nothing to do with the subject but imply Clinton is somehow acting like a man in woman's clothing or not a man.

[Dems Will Win]

26. How could it be sexist and homphobic when that is a real picture?

Rudy must have an awfully big closet to hold all those outfits! Does he dress up in them when he is alone? You have to wonder!

Anyway, it's a good joke as Rudy would have answered the question the same way as Hillary from this picture.

[FreeState]

29. Its a real picture - but its not of Clinton

thats why.

[hulklogan]

33. I agree, those photos are pointless and offensive in the context of your thread. nt

[Toucano]

30. Oh, puleeze! n/t

[FreeState]

32. Oh please what? Im not allowed to have an

opinion if you dont agree with it?

[Toucano]

35. Not at all. You're allowed to have an opinion.

And you're allowed to be told I think you're overreacting.

Fait accompli!

[StrongBad]

25. Tell me

Is it fun making accusations without any evidence whatsoever?

[Dems Will Win]

28. Do you approve of candidates being show the questions beforehand?

Did CNN do it at this debate? I've been in politics since 1984 and I can tell you they certainly did, as they did before the YouTube debate. There's no question, IMHO. That was a carefully canned answer to try and fend off Clinton's problem with saying Yes or No.

[pnwmom]

37. You can assert that but you don't have a single bit of evidence

except for your suspicions.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

39. Suspicions are circumstantial evidence.

[pnwmom]

41. No, they're not. Not in any legal sense. n/t

[A-Schwarzenegger]

42. Suspicions are above the law.

:)

[TAZller]

47. WTPFDB?

"a carefully canned answer to try and fend off Clinton's problem with saying Yes or No" by planting/sharing with her a question that was not Yes or No, in which she carefully and thoughtfuly (through pre-planning) answered "Both"?

Wouldn't it have been easier (and more demonstrative) to ask a politically relevent yes or no question and have her answer yes...or no? And this is your well educated "humble opinion" made clear through working in the political arena since '84? Who did you work for, Nader? No wonder we're in the mess were in. Please Stop. IMHO.

By the way WTPFDB is short for What The Pink Flying Dodo Bird.

[Dems Will Win]

54. The important part of the answer was "Now, I know I'm sometimes accused of not being able to make a

choice" - See?

If you don't think that was prepared, and that the look on her face was so happy to hear the question that she had been prepared for.

Very obvious to me. VERY canned and prepared response and that confirmed my suspicions that CNN let the candidates see all the possible questions BEFORE the debate. Hillary and Obama have bigger staffs and so this would have been an advantage to them to have lots of people go over all the questions and think up clever retorts.

It does make life easier for a candidate, that's for sure.

This story has legs and will continue to be reported on.

[TAZller]

61. Honestly, my friend you need to chill...

Now I feel bad dishing out the level of sarcasm I have. Truth is there is plenty to criticize the media and Clinton on. But, an off the cuff besmirked statement of "Now, I known I am criticized for not being able to make a choice..." just does not rise to the level of a PROOF of conspiracy, colusion, and corruption. When it comes down to it that is what you are claiming. You really do sound a few pearls short of a full strand by purporting so, even moreso in the context of your full assertions.

All another would have to do to "feel" otherwise is believe Clinton is self-aware, self depreciating and at times quick on her feet. Unfortunately for your case, many of her supporters and detractors would mutually agree she has shown those qualities from time to time. Your feeling that something is fishy does not prove the existence of fish. But I fear we are mutually unconvincing.

I'm just saying, it never hurts to look at the political process critically. However prior to crying wolf in an open forum of critical thinkers, in PROOFS of existence of the vast right wing conspiracy, you might want to rely a little more on the facts and a little less on your gut. That approach will likely return less ridicule.

[Dems Will Win]

31. Don't know if you know this but CNN showed all the candidates the questions before the YouTube debat

They came right out and said it -- no tinfoil required.

[Maven]

44. Well, they didn't say that for this debate.

And if they DID show them the questions beforehand, I'd be very surprised, since if that's the case quite a few candidates' answers should have been more polished than they were.

[Maven]

43. LOL. C'mon, this is one of the most unintentionally silly posts I've ever seen here.

Complete with visual aids.

[Cha]

45. Yuck

Yuck.

[ElizabethDC]

46. . . .

:eyes:

[OzarkDem]

49. Um..ick

What does he have on his teeth? No wait, I don't want to know.

[KharmaTrain]

51. You're Assuming This Was A Debate

it wasn't. It was a TV show...staged for time and commercials and for the eyeballs outside the hall. It was fodder for the "village idiots"...the talking heads who spin and weave and live in gotcha games and talking points. The mere format makes it impossible for a serious discussion of issues as this is a show and has to stay lively. We want "confrontation"...faux pas, quick quips, soundbites...and lots of personality. Damn straight it's scripted...all the participants are using this "event"...each has their own script to sell. It's also gotta be "light"...have that silly question that the talking heads love to circle jerk with. This is more a reality TV show...nothing more or less.

[Catherine Vincent]

53. "PLEASE RECOMMEND TO GIVE THIS STORY SOME LEGS!"

I'M NOT RECOMMENDING SHIT!

[earth mom]

55. That question/answer just proves how out of touch Hillary is with average people

many of whom are losing their homes or can't pay the rent.

GAWDDAMNIT! I'm SICK TO DEATH of the FUCKING ELITES running this country! :puke:

[TAZller]

63. Hmmmm...

How do you suggest she or anyone respond to this question to demonstrate their intouchness? "Neither, I give all of my diamonds to the needy for their mortgage and my pearls for their rent?" No, that WOULD be elitist. I would agree that the question was inane, and sexist, and of no added value to the issues at hand, but what would have been an in-touch response? I know plenty of poor people that like both diamonds and pearls. Don't have either but still like both.

Just wondering.

[alfredo]

57. A pre planned question is a signal to the media or participants that the

interview, press conference, or debate is over. That was all it was. Nothing more, nothing less.

One instance I remember well was a Gil Scott Heron press conference in Detroit. After he had answered a series of questions for the press, one of the promoters of his show asked, "Where you get the hat"? Heron replied, "I liberated it." Everyone laughed and moved to get up and leave.

Leave em with a laugh.


If you don't know who he is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron