<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>cbs</author><text>Sure, they&amp;#x27;re fair questions in and of themselves.  That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they&amp;#x27;re not used as part of unreasonable or just nonsense rhetoric.&lt;p&gt;Does the person asking them want to start a real discussion about skill- and merit-based hiring practices? I&amp;#x27;m sure much of HN is familiar with the argument there is an over-reliance on formal education as prerequisites to employment.&lt;p&gt;Armchair quarterbacking someone&amp;#x27;s leak and escape plan is the same sort of story.  There is a lot more to consider in that discussion too (maybe he&amp;#x27;s got a Chinese hookup for forged travel identification), but I don&amp;#x27;t think the blowhard on the radio actually wants to have either of those discussions.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Having questions is not the same as smearing character.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;And 9&amp;#x2F;11 truthers would tell you they&amp;#x27;ve just asking questions.  Blowhard punditry relies on couching their ramblings in &amp;quot;questions&amp;quot; so much an entire south park episode was dedicated to it: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.southparkstudios.com&amp;#x2F;clips&amp;#x2F;255329&amp;#x2F;preview-im-asking-questions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.southparkstudios.com&amp;#x2F;clips&amp;#x2F;255329&amp;#x2F;preview-im-aski...&lt;/a&gt; This might be a bit of an odd link for HN, but we&amp;#x27;re discussing conversational tactics couched as meaningful discourse and I&amp;#x27;m always reminded of this as a quintessential example of the difference.</text><parent_chain><item><author>brown9-2</author><text>Are these not fair questions?&lt;p&gt;I think most people are confused at how someone could expect to have their freedom of speech protected in a country controlled by China. Territories controlled by mainland China are not usually the first places you think of when you think &amp;quot;need to flee the US government&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Similarly, I think most people are surprised at the ability of someone in his stated position to gain as much access as he said he has, and also at the reported size of his salary - because they are not familiar with what the salary scale is like in the world of government private contractors.&lt;p&gt;Having questions is not the same as smearing character.</text></item><item><author>deelowe</author><text>Was happening yesterday on my local talk radio station. &amp;quot;Isn&amp;#x27;t it a bit odd that this guy, a high school drop out somehow got into the NSA? Is he a plant? Isn&amp;#x27;t it odd that he&amp;#x27;s taking refuge in a COMMUNIST nation? I think he&amp;#x27;s a spy. How does a high school dropout get into the nsa?... High school drop out... High school dropout... communist... china...&amp;quot; etc..&lt;p&gt;Not very hard to see who controls the media these days.</text></item><item><author>LandoCalrissian</author><text>This is happening in all the news media now. I listen to NPR every day and it&amp;#x27;s almost insufferable to listen to when they talk about the NSA leak. Very little of the debate is about the actual NSA monitoring program itself, most of of the time they talk about why this leak happened and why Edward Snowden is a &amp;quot;strange&amp;quot; guy. It&amp;#x27;s completely unbelievable.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The Smears Against Edward Snowden Have Begun</title><url>http://nabeelqu.com/blog/the-smears-against-edward-snowden-have-begun</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>deelowe</author><text>My point is that there&amp;#x27;s clearly a narrative. Every news station is saying &amp;quot;high school dropout&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;seeking refuge in a communist nation.&amp;quot; Those exact words. This is what they always do. Talking points are distributed via the email lists for the democratic and republican parties. The &amp;quot;media&amp;quot; takes these talking points and runs with them. If you really pay attention to the news, it&amp;#x27;s eery how quickly they all start speaking in unison. Typically, it&amp;#x27;s one sided, but in this case, both right wing and left wing media are using the same talking points!</text><parent_chain><item><author>brown9-2</author><text>Are these not fair questions?&lt;p&gt;I think most people are confused at how someone could expect to have their freedom of speech protected in a country controlled by China. Territories controlled by mainland China are not usually the first places you think of when you think &amp;quot;need to flee the US government&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Similarly, I think most people are surprised at the ability of someone in his stated position to gain as much access as he said he has, and also at the reported size of his salary - because they are not familiar with what the salary scale is like in the world of government private contractors.&lt;p&gt;Having questions is not the same as smearing character.</text></item><item><author>deelowe</author><text>Was happening yesterday on my local talk radio station. &amp;quot;Isn&amp;#x27;t it a bit odd that this guy, a high school drop out somehow got into the NSA? Is he a plant? Isn&amp;#x27;t it odd that he&amp;#x27;s taking refuge in a COMMUNIST nation? I think he&amp;#x27;s a spy. How does a high school dropout get into the nsa?... High school drop out... High school dropout... communist... china...&amp;quot; etc..&lt;p&gt;Not very hard to see who controls the media these days.</text></item><item><author>LandoCalrissian</author><text>This is happening in all the news media now. I listen to NPR every day and it&amp;#x27;s almost insufferable to listen to when they talk about the NSA leak. Very little of the debate is about the actual NSA monitoring program itself, most of of the time they talk about why this leak happened and why Edward Snowden is a &amp;quot;strange&amp;quot; guy. It&amp;#x27;s completely unbelievable.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The Smears Against Edward Snowden Have Begun</title><url>http://nabeelqu.com/blog/the-smears-against-edward-snowden-have-begun</url></story>