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.
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.ZENNIE ABRAHAM,
OAKLAND ,CALIFORNIA : This quarter reads "." And when I turn it over, you find that it reads " United States of America . In God We Trust." What do those words mean to you? Liberty
STEPHEN MARSH, THOUSAND OAKS,: 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? CALIFORNIA
KEVIN,: 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? SEATTLE ,WASHINGTON
MONTY KNIGHT,: 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? CHARLESTON ,SOUTH CAROLINA
(End transcript)
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.
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
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
“Whether it’s raising taxes on gas or forcing
It's all in an hour’s work over at CNN.