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.”
Now, Luisa is getting “swamped” with critical e-mails. So what happened? Writes Luisa: “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 wasn’t a FAKE question, it was one derived by staffs of political aides and newswriters.
It was a Democratic Party Debate. Assume everyone and everything is being done to make each candidate look as good as possible.
This is being made too big a deal. Mountain out of a mole hill.
The reality is that the questions are contrived. The duty of each individual is to judge the manner in which each candidate responded.
You are being led to focus on ‘plants’ and not on ‘candidates’.
I mean, were they serious about this as a political ‘news’ item?
I thought it was like Ex-Lax. Shiny wrapper, inside shiny chocolate. Mmmmmmm- chew.
And then, you gotta run to the bathroom.