And if Kerr has donated to Republicans, that does lend some nuance to Kerr qua Kerr, but this it doesn’t change the issue at hand. It’s not incidental Democratic affiliation if he’s been a public supporter of both Hillary and John Kerry, as reported.

An aside: As I think James Taranto asked, why is he supporting the wife of the man who enacted “don’t ask, don’t tell”? I find it unlikely she would successfully get rid of it, even if it’s a good idea, even if she says she would now.

First of all, the narrative posed by the interview contradicts itself on at least one major count: Roberts asserts that CNN did, in fact, perform a background check on Kerr, but only to determine if he had made any campaign contributions. They found that he had not, and he affirms early in the conversation that he had not. Then, near the conclusion of the interview, he states that has been involved in political campaigns earlier this fall, making at least one donation– all for Republicans. Roberts doesn’t even blink.

To my mind, this information doesn’t so much reaffirm the assertion that CNN’s political fact-checking department is either corrupt or inept as it does point to the Sisyphean nature of the fact-checking endeavor. As opposed to offering conclusive evidence of bias on CNN’s part, this incident seems rather to raise a host of questions: What exactly does a background check such as that performed by a news organization consist of? How many different databases pertain to such a check? In what manner would a background check performed by MSNBC or FOX differ from one conducted by CNN? What sorts of biases and what sorts of different databases would pertain to such a check? Is it counterintuitive to expect that an intelligent question pertaining to the national interest in such a forum would be posed by an individual with zero prior involvement in politics? What level of prior involvement meets the threshold? Had CNN recognized Kerr’s prior involvement in politics, would his history with Republican campaigns have weighted equally in the decision of whether to use his question as his history with Democratic initiatives? What does it mean for the Republican party at this juncture that a one-issue activist ostensibly within its camp would have his more minimal ties to a Democratic campaign highlighted— that he would be “outed” as a sometime Democratic sympathizer in areas pertaining to that same issue— as a result of his attempt to steer debate within the party?

The Democrat debate was dominated by questioners asking: “Why can’t you be more leftist?” And the Republican debate will be dominated by questioners asking: “Why can’t you be more leftist?”

No matter what you thought of the CNN/YouTube debate, no matter who the questioners were, that’s pretty much spot on (the occasional Bible-beater notwithstanding).

See RedState’s proposal for a “do-over” YouTube debate. Conservatives can’t ask EVERYONE softballs — they have an interest in distinguishing between the candidates; they would just choose different questions than CNN and Google. (This might actually make for a full post, now that I think about it.)

And not to be too didactic, but perhaps “nonplussed” does not mean what you think it means.