NewsBreakingOnline

CNN devoted several segments on Tuesday and Wednesday to Delaware Republican Christine O'Donnell's apparent gaffe on the First Amendment, but barely acknowledged her opponent Chris Coons's own gaffe on the amendment. Analyst Jeff Toobin spun O'Donnell's remark as demonstrating that ” she didn't seem to know ” the amendment. It took conservative Dana Loesch on AC360 to bring up Coons's own gaffe. Anchor Wolf Blitzer played an edited clip of O'Donnell's questioning of Coons on the First Amendment issue during Tuesday morning's WDEL Delaware Senate candidate debate on his Situation Room program. Blitzer did not play the part where the Republican clearly asked, ” You're telling me the 'separation of church and state'- the phrase, 'the separation of church and state' is found in the First Amendment? ” [audio available here ] After playing the edited sound bite, Blitzer continued that “O'Donnell's spokesman later said she was not questioning the concept of church and state subsequently established by the courts, she simply made the point, he says that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution, 'separation of church and state.'” This is an accurate summary of the candidate's line of questioning, but since the anchor didn't play the part where she used the term, “the phrase 'separation of church and state,'” he made it seem like the spokesman was giving a clarification. Blitzer then turned to Toobin, and after reading the full text of the First Amendment, asked the CNN senior legal analyst, “So when her [O'Donnell's] spokesman says the words 'separation of church and state' specifically are not in the First Amendment, they're not.” The analyst confirmed that this was the case. Later in the segment, the CNN anchor raised how O'Donnell also couldn't remember what the 14th and 16th Amendments were during the debate and asked, ” Do Senators need to memorize the Constitution? ” Toobin made a fair point about the importance of the 14th Amendment, but got something wrong himself: read more