In last night’s CNN special on their upcoming YouTube debate, Paula Zahn previewed some of the video questions that had been sent in. The topics up for debate last night included faith and values, the environment and gay rights. Zahn led the segment on faith and values with the comment, “we are seeing an amazing variety of questions about faith and values for next Monday’s debate.” Unfortunately the four YouTube questions that followed were anything but a “variety.” The transcript of the questions follows below.

ZENNIE ABRAHAM, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: This quarter reads "United States of America." And when I turn it over, you find that it reads "Liberty. In God We Trust." What do those words mean to you?

STEPHEN MARSH, THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA: I'm worried about the amount of time given to evangelical concerns, while secular voters are more or less getting snubbed. Am I wrong in fearing a Democratic administration that may pay lip service to be extremely religious as much as the current one?

KEVIN, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: I am part of a very large group here on YouTube that has been traditionally marginalized by the political process. And that is atheists. For anybody brave enough to take it, what will do you to represent my interests and the interests of other Americans who do not profess a belief in God?

MONTY KNIGHT, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: As president of our local chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, as in the First Amendment to our nation's Constitution, my question is this. Does one have to be the right kind of Christian to be elected president of our great nation?

(End transcript)

Aside from the first question, which is politically neutral (but a complete softball,) each has a distinctly liberal flare to them. Analyzing them separately, there area few interesting conclusions that can be made.

One, it seems that secular voters are “getting snubbed.” Two, atheists are left out of the political process. Three, Democrats are concerned that you have to be Christian to be elected president.

Apparently these guys making the questions forgot that Roe v. Wade is still in place, (over many objections by Christian groups), that the First Amendment is alive and well, and Bill Clinton (probably not many people’s idea of “the right kind of Christian”) was elected president twice during the 90’s.

The way that these questions state things sounds like every single political decision made in the last 20 years has been exclusive property of the Religious Right and everyone else has been completely left out of the political process.

I guess when Paula said “variety” she was talking about the variety of questions that were received and immediately rejected for not being critical enough of religion or for being too tough to answer.

Unfortunately, the bias didn’t stop there. In the environmental portion of the report, Miles O’Brien, CNN’s chief technology and environment correspondent got in the usual liberal lines. He started out by saying that America uses too much oil and that it harms the environment and climate and thereby implicitly stating his belief in man-made global warming. The transcript of his segment follows below.

MILES O'BRIEN: The crude facts are this. We are a nation of oil gluttons.

With only 5 percent of the world's population, we use 25 percent of all the oil that burns. That's 876 million gallons a day, nearly three gallons for every American man, woman and child. In one-gallon cans, the oil we use daily would circle the equator more than six-and- a-half times.

We know this is bad for the environment and the climate. And more than three-quarters of what we use comes from other countries, some of them places where we are increasingly unpopular.

So, why are we so far behind? Well, for one thing, in those other countries, oil has always been much more expensive and heavily taxed, so people use less. Here in the U.S., cheap and plentiful oil has fueled an amazing century-long economic party. But no party lasts forever.

And the presidential candidates recognize that.

(End transcript)

O'Brien credits America’s cheap oil as being responsible for “an amazing century-long economic party,” but adds the usual liberal defeatist line that “no party lasts forever.” In addition, he decries America for being “so far behind” other countries in alternative fuels.

But don’t worry; he makes clear at the end his great solution for reducing America’s dependence on oil.

“Whether it’s raising taxes on gas or forcing Detroit to build more efficient cars, there are no easy choices, and as time goes on, they won’t get any easier.”

That’s right, raising the same taxes that have allowed America to embark on “an amazing century-long economic party.” I guess that’s what he was talking about when he said “no party lasts forever.” Gee, there’s nothing like destroying the country’s economy in an effort to appease the liberal global warming alarmists.

It's all in an hour’s work over at CNN.