On the November 29 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, former House Majority Leader and Townhall.com columnist Tom DeLay (R-TX) claimed that the questions asked during the November 28 CNN/YouTube Republican debate “were nothing but gotcha questions with a liberal bias,” and that “there was no gotcha questions like these” during the July 23 CNN/YouTube Democratic debate. Later in the segment, co-host Sean Hannity asserted, “Now I don't remember seeing Republican questioners at the Democratic debate. Do you?” However, as Media Matters for America documented, several questions from the July 23 Democratic debate could be classified as Republican “gotcha” questions. Subsequently, a November 30 Los Angeles Times article reported that "[a] review by the Los Angeles Times" of the Democratic debate found that "[a]t least two of the citizen-interrogators had clear GOP leanings."

Media Matters noted that several questions asked during the Democratic debate could be described as Republican “gotchas,” including: one in which the questioner echoed the enduring Republican myth of Democrats as taxers and spenders, another asking the candidates' views on gun control, and a question to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) about her reception as a female president by Arab and Muslim states.

The Los Angeles Times subsequently reported that the MySpace page of the questioner who asked whether Clinton “would be taken seriously” by Arab and Muslim states “features pictures of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate.” The article further reported that the man who asked about gun control reportedly “said he had voted twice for President Bush” during “an interview Thursday.” From the November 30 Times article:

But, CNN's [political director Sam] Feist said, conservative commentators did not complain when questioners who shared their political ideology had videos aired during the Democratic forum in July.

During that session, one video questioner asked the candidates to choose between raising taxes or cutting benefits in order to save Social Security. Another demanded to know whether taxes would rise “like usually they do when a Democrat comes in office.” A third featured a gun-toting Michigan man, who in an interview Thursday said he had voted twice for President Bush, who wanted to know if the Democrats would protect his “baby” -- an assault rifle he cradled in his arms.

Another questioner from that forum who seemed to have clear conservative credentials was John McAlpin, a sailor who asked Clinton: “How do you think you would be taken seriously” by Arab and Muslim nations that treat women as “second-class citizens”?

McAlpin's MySpace page features pictures of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate.

It depicts Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly as a friend, while offering a caricature of a bearded, turban-wearing “Borat Hussein Obama” -- a derogatory reference to Obama, the Democratic candidate who as a youth attended a Muslim school.

From the November 29 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

FORD: Again, I'm not here to defend CNN or any of those people. My only point is that when the Democratic debate took place on CNN with YouTube, we had many questions -- similar questions. Maybe we ought to do them right all here at Fox and do it right here on Hannity & Colmes --

HANNITY: It would have been done a lot better. Yes, Tom DeLay.

FORD: -- and get the questions right.

DeLAY: Harold, I have got to tell you, there were -- in that Democrat [sic] YouTube, there was no gotcha questions like these were. These were nothing but gotcha questions with a liberal bias.

FORD: No, no, I have got great respect for you, but --

DeLAY: CNN.

FORD: I'm not going to let you get --

DeLAY: Harold, if I could finish.

FORD: It goes both ways. This goes both ways.

DeLAY: Harold, I let you finish. Harold, I let you finish. Let me finish.

HANNITY: All right. Tell you what, I will let you both finish, go ahead, Congressman. You have 15 seconds.

DeLAY: Well, this is the way Democrats debate. They try to talk over you.

FORD: Are you calling Sean a Democrat?

HANNITY: All right. Congressman, hang on. Congressman DeLay, it's Sean. We are getting crosstalk here. Let me come back. We will throw it back to you as soon as we get back, I promise.

And a lot more to come tonight. There is plenty more to show you from last night's debate disaster. And here is what looks like a concerned young voter. Turns out she is an Edwards supporter. Now, I don't remember seeing Republicans questioners at the Democratic debate. Do you? So we are going to keep dissecting this disgraceful CNN debate.

And later, Seattle's mayor thinks Santa Claus is in real danger and we can all do something to stop it, straight ahead.