Much ado about....something?

A gaffe. A blunder. A chink in the armor. These were some of the phrases I’ve heard to describe the week Hillary Clinton has had. First she stumbled in the debate, over illegal immigrants being issued drivers’ licenses. Then there was hubby Bill referring to her male counterparts as “boys.” (Plus, he was essentially saying they were picking on her.) But the big story – the huge, time stopping, mind blowing, jump out of your seat and ram your head right into the wall story – was that one of her aides may have (read: did) plant a question with an audience member. “Here, young college student, ask Senator Clinton this question about climate change.” This is the big story? This is a joke right? I mean, I certainly do not condone the idea of having candidates asked questions prepared by their own people. In fact, I don’t even believe a politician should be given questions from a reporter in advance of an interview, and that includes sitting presidents. You should be an adult and answer the questions asked of you. You got a degree from a much better college then I did, you’ve probably been debating for the better part of your life, you’re the leader of the free world, and yet somehow you can’t be expected to answer the hard hitting questions of Katie Couric without seeing them first? Come on. So, again, I’m not saying we should give Hillary’s camp a pass here because I don’t think anyone should do it. What bothers me is the uproar.

All over the news channels since the event they’ve talked about the outrage, the disbelief, the damage this may do to Hillary’s campaign. And yet, to this point, I’ve only heard one person (Time columnist Joe Klein) say the magic words: EVERYBODY DOES THIS! I would be shocked if a single one of those types of political events goes by without the candidate being asked a staged question. Especially in the presidential arena! And it’s not like this is new. You can date this practice back decades as a commonplace tactic candidates use to get a particular message out to the people. You think they weren’t planting questions when Kennedy took on Nixon over 40 years ago? Think about it, if no one’s going to ask a question about Social Security while I’m speaking at Columbia University, well then we’ll just plant someone to ask it because all the major news outlets are here and we need to push our position.

So why the outcry over this situation? There are a few possibilities. One reason could be simply that it’s a slow news cycle. Yes, there was a baby born with four arms and four legs in India, but that’s not going to sell papers. There’s still a war going on, but people are awfully tired of that on a day by day basis. So, here’s a crumb we can grow into a loaf with legs. Maybe even four legs! Haha! Sorry.

Another reason is the frontrunner syndrome. Any little negative that comes out of the Clinton camp is going to be scrutinized and derided more than any other campaign because she’s the leader and that’s what we do: we rip down those on high. Still another possibility is that the media has become awfully bored of writing the same story every single day: Hillary leads by 35 points; Obama, Edwards unable to gain ground. Little things like this make journalists foam at the mouth because maybe, just maybe, we might have a race here. Can Obama capitalize? Will Edwards pounce? The problem with that logic, again, is that the story only has merit if she’s actually the only one doing it. Right now she’s the only one we know of that does it. Or is she?

Yes, Hillary Clinton’s aide asked a college student to read a pre-packaged question written by her campaign. But how does that compare to our president, while campaigning for a second term, screening every person in each of his audiences? That campaign didn’t get caught screening audiences, they flat out admitted it. The questions didn’t have to be planted by their people because there was no possibility of getting a tough question. Any person who may have disagreed with the president was not let in. So where’s the real injustice here? Is it in the coverage of a staged question? Or is it in the lack of coverage in the fact that our president, The President of the United States, hasn’t been asked a legitimate question in the last six years? Which one bothers you more?

Write back to me on this. Agree with me. Disagree with me. Yell at me. Start a debate. Just talk. If anyone out there is reading this, this is the point of this site, the point of the process. Fight with me. Despite what you may have heard there’s nothing wrong with a little healthy debate, especially an un-staged one….