Look, we can blame CNN all we want. But there’s more to the sad fact that Democratic campaign and Party plants asked 11 of the questions in the last two debates, as though they were mere “undecided, concerned voters” from the “real world.”

CNN deserves much blame for it, but I doubt they actually colluded in letting this happen. They should have reacted, however, by castigating the Democrats for corrupting the process. Isn’t that what’s really going on here? Isn’t this what Hillary’s campaign also does by planting questioners at each campaign stop? They’re creating Potemkin villages of political opinion everywhere they go, and showing them off to the television cameras.

Hey Dems: Just stop it already, will you? You’re ruining the democratic process for everyone, making us all even more cynical about public service and politics.

Update– From a reader:

Excuse me, but I have to disagree with you. No where on YouTube or on CNN were their rules stating that only registered Republicans could submit questions to the debate…At the same time, no one prevented Republican voters from submitting questions to the Democratic debate. I don’t think Democratic voters who had the initiative to get in front of their web cams and take the time to formulate questions should be blamed.

You miss the point. These aren’t just Democratic voters – I wouldn’t have a problem with it if it were just that. But we’re talking about political activists, people who are involved with campaigns or work in Senate offices, and then the former political director for the Democratic Party of Arkansas. Sure, there are no rules about it, but when you end up with eleven of these people asking questions, you’re not getting a sample of “real world people’s concerns,” are you?

Isn’t that the whole point of the YouTube debate — to let real-life, ordinary people ask questions of the candidates? Instead we get these party apparatchiks: Hillary’s general and other professional political functionaries, who fail to identify themselves as such. It makes the whole exercise into a sham.

If CNN sent a strong public message to Clinton’s people — please stop trying to corrupt our debates — I think that would sufficiently deter any other campaign (or even its functionaries, acting on their own) from trying such a thing.