Do you feel manipulated yet?
Maria Luisa is the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton the ridiculous question about whether she preferred “diamonds or pearls” at the Las Vegas debate. She wanted to ask about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, but the supine network CNN made her ask a question that would suck up to the candidate whose campaign had been actively intimidating the network in the days before the debate. From the Atlantic:
“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 is hard to think of any element of this government/media collusion that is not vile. Every question is planted or pre-approved by a presidential campaign or its media servants. No wonder Senator Clinton was genuinely surprised when she encountered an unscripted question and hence attributed it to enemy action.