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Plant Talks

About being the plant at the plant. And I thought only the evil Bushitler regime did this kind of thing:  

Hillary Clinton stopped at a bio-diesel plant in Newton, Iowa earlier this week to see alternative fuels in the making and drive home the week’s campaign theme of her energy plan. After a tour, the candidate took questions from the crowd.

She called on a young woman. “As a young person,” said the well-spoken Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, “I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?”

“Well, you should be worried,” Clinton replied. “You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it’s usually young people that ask me about global warming.”

There’s a good reason for that, too. The question was a plant, totally rigged in advance, like a late-night infomercial. Just before the public forum a Clinton staffer had chosen the young woman, a student at Grinnell College, and asked her to ask that specific question.

Trouble is, the young woman told others and today her account showed up on the Grinnell website, including mention that the staffer signaled Clinton who to call on.

Tonight, as other campaigns chuckled and hypocritically spread the news far and wide, a Clinton campaign spokesman admitted sheepishly, “On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton’s energy plan at a forum. However, Senator Clinton did not know which questioners she was calling on during the event. This is not standard policy and will not be repeated again.”

Here’s the old Scarlet and Black:

… according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.

Clinton called on Gallo-Chasanoff after her speech to ask a question: what Clinton would do to stop the effects of global warming. Clinton began her response by noting that young people often pose this question to her before delving into the benefits of her plan.

But the source of the question was no coincidence—at this event “they wanted a question from a college student,” Gallo-Chasanoff said. She also noted that staffers prompted Clinton to call on her and another who had been approached before the event, although Clinton used her discretion to select questions and called on people who had not been prepped before hand. Some of the questions asked were confusing and clearly off-message.

Good thing the Clinton campaign came clean. You know what they say. It isn’t the crime. It’s the coverup.

Hold on. Looks like the Clinton camp gave coverup the old college try:

But the Clinton campaign also denied the practice of planting. “It’s not a practice of our campaign to ask people to ask specific questions,” said Mark Daley, Clinton’s Iowa Communications Director. Daley said that when an event is focusing on a specific topic, such as health care or Iraq, “people are encouraged to ask questions in these regards,” but denied that they are given specific questions.

But when directly asked if his statements meant that planting does not occur in the Hillary campaign, Daley could only say, “to the best of my knowledge.”

“[Planting] is not something that is encouraged in our campaign,” he said.

Not something that is encouraged … something that is actively practiced, with hand signals!

Topics: Clintons, pols

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:05 pm on Saturday, November 10, 2007

6 Responses to “Plant Talks”

1. Stupid Faux Noise Headline of the Day…. — Chuck Adkins Says:
   November 10th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

   [...] ScrappleFace, Donklephant, GINA COBB, QandO, Lonewacko and PoliPundit.com, Booman Tribune,  Jules Crittenden, Don Surber, Stop The ACLU and The Caucus, Brilliant at Breakfast, Media Blog,  Flopping Aces, [...]

2. saltydog Says:
   November 10th, 2007 at 2:10 pm

   I, for one, am shocked, SHOCKED at this underhanded use of college students. Even more shocking is that said student didn’t tell them to go take a flying … leap at the moon.

3. Robert Says:
   November 10th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

   Brass Cojohns.

4. tanstaafl Says:
   November 10th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

   Once, I wanted to name a rock band Cojones of Brass

   (but I digress)

   Hillary’s crowd planting setting up (whatever) audience questions is just another example of “that gal” trying to control the dialogue, agenda, spin, direction…(fill in the blank.)

   Really, If you’re not (yet) totally appalled with all the orchestration “politics” in America has morphed into, there’s something wrong with you.

5. OnlyInBostonKids Says:
   November 10th, 2007 at 5:49 pm

   It seems that “that gal” is all about total and absolute control. The Soviets brought totalitarianism of the masses into an art form; however, the public here in the US aren’t buying.

   “That gal” knows better than to load the questions to a college student, especially when said college student can blab it to all their friends and put it on Facebook or Myspace. In this case, total control blew up in her face.

6. tanstaafl Says:
   November 10th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

   I just don’t even care anymore what anyone says.

   Maybe they’ll wear me out and/or b eat me back so much (in the avalanche of meaningless verbiage), I’ll just become a willing subservient “victim” of whatever spillage and spin is put out there.

   Ya think ?

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