Sanctuary From the Facts?

In a profile on Sen. Barack Obama's Web site, Cercone wrote about "why I support Barack Obama: He is a leader who inspires me with his sincerity, his earnestness, and his vision for change."

Conservative bloggers, some of whom deride CNN as the "Clinton News Network," ripped the network yesterday. At InstaPundit, Glenn Reynolds wrote: "Once again, CNN demonstrates an inexplicable failure to background-check pro-Hillary questioners." Scott Johnson of PowerLine wrote that "CNN has shown itself unable or unwilling to act as an honest broker."

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway, said: "If lone bloggers can vet these people in less than half an hour, surely CNN's crack journalistic team should have been able to do so between the time they selected the pool of questions and the airing of the debate?"

Bohrman said he had no problem using questioners who have voiced support for other candidates as long as they are not donors or formally affiliated with any campaign. "We bent over backwards to be fair," he said. "We're not perfect. But we tried extremely hard."

Here's some more reaction. Captain Ed is less exercised than some of his conservative colleagues:

"Bad journalistic practices? Definitely yes. But does that negate the questions themselves? I don't think so. The CNN/YouTube format closely parallels that of the traditional town-hall forum. For the most part, attendees do not get vetted at these events either, nor should they. After all, while a primary usually involves voters of one party, the entire nation has a stake in the selection of the nominees. If Hillary Clinton held a town hall in my community, I should have an opportunity to question her about her positions on issues without pledging a loyalty oath to do so.

"The questions asked don't seem particularly outrageous."

Fred Barnes says the whole thing stunk:

"This debate not only was mortifying to the candidates. It also should have been embarrassing to the viewers, especially Republican voters who might have been watching.

"I don't know if the folks who put the debate together were purposely trying to make the Republican candidates look bad, but they certainly succeeded. True, the candidates occasionally contributed. For the first few minutes, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney continued their debate over their records on immigration and did so with the kind of intensity that this trivial matter didn't warrant. These are two fine candidates who have only themselves to blame for looking petty.

"But it was chiefly the questions and who asked them that made the debate so appalling. By my recollection, there were no questions on health care, the economy, trade, the S-chip children's health care issue, the 'surge' in Iraq, the spending showdown between President Bush and Congress, terrorist surveillance, or the performance of the Democratic Congress.

"Instead there were questions--ones moderator Anderson Cooper kept insisting had required a lot of time and effort by the questioners--on the Confederate flag, Mars, Giuliani's rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, whether Ron Paul might run as an independent for president, and the Bible."