Last week’s CNN/YouTube debate kicked off some serious screaming around the right-wing blogosphere. Rants from Michelle Malkin that revolved around video questioners being “plants” smacked of frustration that the candidates were actually being challenged:

“The best thing about Republicans agreeing to do the CNN/YouTube debate is that it created yet another invaluable opportunity to expose CNN’s abject incompetence.”

A group calling themselves the “Save the Debate Coalition” issued a statement the following day calling CNN’s editorial process “flawed”:

"Unfortunately, CNN's flawed editorial process in choosing the questions asked of the candidates marred an otherwise lively debate and betrayed the trust of the Republican candidates and the YouTube user community. In the most glaring example, a questioner affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign was given a soapbox to berate the Republican candidates at the debate — when even a cursory web search of the individual would have revealed his clear conflict of interest.

We strongly encourage YouTube and other new media platforms to refrain from working with CNN on future debates."

It’s unclear what this “conflict of interest” entails? The last time I checked these presidential candidates were running for office to hold the (debatable) honor of being the President of the United States – for the whole country – not just those who identify as Republican. How does a citizen – who wants to know how these candidates' potential policies will affect his life – represent a conflict of interest by the mere fact of his political beliefs?

While these debates are a lead-up to the primaries, it is important for all Americans to feel that they are a part of the process. At some point, one of those Republican candidates will be the Republican nominee for president. They are presenting themselves on a national stage, sharing their political perspectives and leadership ability for all voters to critique. This is not a closed-party event, is it?

At Jill Stanek’s Pro-Life Pulse, Jill called Journey, the young woman who was featured on Rewire prior to the debate and whose video question about criminalizing women who obtain abortions was also included during the debate, a “ringer” who “it turned out was an Edwards supporter.”

Jill could not believe that Journey was chosen “blindly.” Instead Jill believes there to be some sort of leftist conspiracy of which Rewire, CNN, Journey and the gay Brigadier General are engaged (because we all know that young women who support women’s rights, homosexual former military, cable news channels and progressive online publications are in collusion to create cable news programming focused solely on gay and women’s issues in the military in order to overthrow the government!):

Jill asks:

“Was it simply coincidental that Rewire likewise gave the YouTube debate extraordinary attention beforehand and simply coincidentally contacted Journey to spotlight her?

Did I sense a little CYA in Rewire's

morning-after post?”

Well, no. It wasn’t “coincidence.” It was Rewire doing our research prior to the debates to see what, if any, questions were being asked about sexual and reproductive health so that we might influence the debate in a way that serves the best interest of women in this country. The fact that we “discovered” Journey and worked with her to encourage our readers to submit questions was, I may humbly say, a smart move on our part.

Meanwhile over at Michelle Malkin’s blog, Michelle was shocked to find Journey in a John Edwards t-shirt (!) in Journey’s video response to the candidates who answered her questions in the debates. Malkin travels down a twisted road to arrive at this boring revelation:

“Turns out “Journey/” “paperserenade” is also a big slobbering Anderson Cooper fan. She posted this video a month ago exulting that “Anderson Cooper said my name!” during a CNN viewer comment segment. She wrote, “Horrible video, but at least I’ve got some type of recording of this event that has made my week!”

Malkin tries desperately to find a house of cards she can knock down but it’s just not there. Yes, Journey is an Anderson Cooper fan. And, yes, Journey’s video was picked for screening at the debate. And do you want to know why Journey’s question was chosen? Journey submitted at least five questions on sexual and reproductive health issues prior to the debate – all of which as I have written prior – were thoughtful, intelligent and obviously intended to solicit some honest answers from the candidates.

The candidates did not provide real answers. But Michelle, Jill and their readers didn’t want to discuss the actual answers to these important questions. They wanted to discuss the gall of the questioners to put honest inquiries to the GOP candidates on stage, and the fact that Journey, in particular, should never have asked her questions as a concerned citizen if she didn’t want to get lambasted by anti-choicers.

And those who chose to comment on Journey’s YouTube page, after Journey (“Paperserenade”) posted her video response, were unrelenting:

“To paperserenade: how much did it cost John Edwards to get you to whore yourself out to CNN and to the Democrats?”

Because apparently women can’t craft their own questions and stand on the merits of what they believe to be true without being attacked as whores?

Meanwhile, on Rewire, Jill Stanek’s blog, Michelle Malkin’s blog and others including the The Bitch Girls, readers are engaging in a very real debate (some of it inexplicably vicious) about what it means to punish women who have abortions should abortion become illegal in the United States. It’s important to take the emphasis off of Journey and the other questioners in order to dialogue about these very real issues. Thank you to Journey for being brave enough to ask these questions and for caring deeply about her country and all of us who live here. Now, back to my conspiracy planning.