Yes folks I know, this story has been diaried a lot. We've all gotten our say on the ridiculous actions of the Clinton campaign regarding planting questions in IA. However I read the story again on CNN.com this morning and I noticed something that I didn't before. I'm providing the link to the story, then I can tell you what I'm talking about.
It's not my wish to focus only on the absurdity of trying to plant a question. For what it's worth, the question that they tried to get this student to ask sounded so damned generic, I would've suspected it was planted had it been asked...the question they wanted asked was "As a young person, I'm worried about the long term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"
Forgive me Clintonistas (I just love that term, it is not at all meant to be offensive, much like Deaniac in 04), but that question could not possibly be more generic and fake. What college student refers to themselves as "young person," rather than "a college student?" The question was fake, and would've been a tip off to any observant person at the event, even had the Clinton staff not been so monumentally stupid as to get caught at what they were trying to do.
The other aspect to this story that made me wish to discuss it in a diary is this. After a person in charge of publicity for the campaign had admitted that there was no factual error with her story, the young lady stated that a campaign intern spoke to her to say that:
"the campaign requests that she not talk about the story to any more media outlets AND THAT IF SHE DID, SHE SHOULD INFORM A STAFFER."
Ladies and gentleman, if this is true, then it just falls off the map of unbelievable. After trying to get this student to ask a fake question so that Hillary could prop up her stance on this issue (since apparently, she couldn't do it on her own), they then ask her not to talk about it any more (fair enough) but said that if she did, SHE SHOULD INFORM A STAFFER!!!
Under what conceivable obligation does this woman have to run her lunch order past the Clinton staff, let alone what she says to the media?? She even felt she had to state on the record, that she was under no obligation to do that and would not do that. We all knew that Clinton believes the nomination should be hers (that's fine, so does every candidate). We all know she has problems, not with honesty, but with the perception that she wants to be all things to all people. But this just tops the list. Her staff has the unparalleled arrogance to tell this woman, who did nothing wrong but to refuse a generic question, that she should (ie..was obligated to) report to the Clinton staff if she were to talk about this to the media again. I shouldn't have to say anymore, this should sell itself as top of the list appalling and STUPID!!!!!!!!
This should guarantee that the story continues to gather steam. Already, in the same story, another person is quoted as saying he was asked to ask a planted question several months ago. Now the Clinton staff think that private citizens should give them the heads up before something critical is said? Why? Under what possible fantasy should she or anyone else do that? What this basically says is "We messed up, we don't want you telling people we messed up, but if you do, you have an obligation to tell us that you are." The Hillary camp, desperate to reverse an act of BLATANT STUPIDITY (I'm sorry folks, there is no other word for this) have only made it worse, and look even more arrogant and out of touch with it.
So let's sum it up: They try to plant a question. They get caught. The question is obviously a generic softball. They deny it happened. Then they sheepishly admit that it did happen, but Clinton had no idea. Then they try to shut the student up, and when they can't, they say she has an obligation to alert them.
Ladies and Gentleman!! Hillary Clinton's IA staff!!!!!!!!! The Stuff that Geniuses are made of!!!
I can only imagine what will happen if she gets to the WH and she tries to block bad press. Who else will have an obligation to give her staff a heads up? Members of Congress? The Press? Retiring staffers? Truly unbelievable!!!