In a surprising piece (coming from a left-leaning writer in a left-leaning newspaper), Tim Rutten at the Los Angeles Times cries foul on CNN's handling of the most recent Republican presidential debate.
Rutten questions why CNN spent the first 35 minutes of the debate on the issue of illegal immigration, which is not one of the top concerns of the American people as documented by public opinion polls, and accuses CNN of focusing on immigration in order to boost its own ratings:
So, why did CNN make immigration the keystone of this debate? What standard dictated the decision to give that much time to an issue so remote from the majority of voters' concerns? The answer is that CNN's most popular news-oriented personality, Lou Dobbs, has made opposition to illegal immigration and free trade the centerpiece of his neonativist/neopopulist platform. In fact, Dobbs led into Wednesday's debate with a good solid dose of immigrant bashing. His network is in a desperate ratings battle with Fox News and, in a critical prime-time slot, with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. So, what's good for Dobbs is good for CNN.
In other words, CNN intentionally directed the Republicans' debate to advance its own interests. Make immigration a bigger issue and you've made a bigger audience for Dobbs.
That's corruption, and it's why the Republican candidates had to spend more than half an hour "debating" an issue on which their differences are essentially marginal -- and, more important, why GOP voters had to sit and wait, mostly in vain, for the issues that really concern them to be discussed.
Captain Ed thinks Rutten is over the top in accusing CNN of outright corruption, and I'd have to agree that the evidence to support that charge is thin at this point, but Rutten certainly is correct in questioning CNN's judgment in the questions it chose to highlight in the debate.
As I and other commentators have pointed out, the questions CNN selected are ones that would be primarily of interest if one wanted to undermine the candidates and advance a Democratic Party agenda. Not coincidentally, it turns out that one prominent question was asked by a member of a Hillary Clinton campaign steering committee who was not identified as such during the debate, and several other questions were asked by persons already publicly committed to other Democratic candidates (none of whom were disclosed as such).
Beyond that, Rutten is right to take offense at CNN's selection of a question that forced candidates to take a position on the inerrancy of the Bible:
THIS is intellectual venality, but it pales beside the wickedness of using some crackpot's query about the candidates' stand on Biblical inerrancy to do something that's anathema in our system -- to probe people's individual religious consciences. American journalists quite legitimately ask candidates about policy issues -- say, abortion -- that might be influenced by their religious or philosophical convictions. We do not and should not ask them about those convictions themselves. It's nobody's business whether a candidate believes in the virgin birth, whether God gave an oral Torah to Moses at Sinai, whether the Buddha escaped the round of birth and rebirth or whether an angel appeared to Joseph Smith.
The latter point is relevant because CNN's noxious laundering of this question through the goofy YouTube mechanism quite clearly was designed to embarrass Mitt Romney -- who happens to be a Mormon -- and, secondarily, to help Mike Huckabee -- who, as a Baptist minister, had a ready answer, and who happens to be television's campaign flavor of the month.
I don't think CNN would ever dare to ask a Jewish or Muslim candidate whether they believe the New Testament is true in its entirety. While candidates' religious beliefs are relevant in my opinion, we certainly do not live in a theocracy. It is not right for CNN to selectively question some candidates, but not others, on their religious beliefs.
I also agree with Rutten's conclusion that CNN can no longer be trusted as an honest debate moderator:
In any event, CNN has failed in its responsibilities to the political process and it's time for the leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties to take the network out of our electoral affairs.
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