I'm not sure about what anyone else who watched CNN's Jessica Yellin filling in for John King thought about her appearance on there this week, but it left little doubt in my mind that somehow his show could be even worse than it is already with someone else hosting it.

Our friends over at Media Matters have done a great job documenting the smears of Chris Coons for an article he wrote back in 1985 where he jokingly referred to himself as a "self-described Marxist". Apparently it was too much trouble for CNN's Jessica Yellin to go actually read that article before she questioned Coons about it during this interview on CNN, or she did read it and she's playing dumb. Either way, it makes me wonder if she might be embarrassed for sounding like someone with the intelligence level of a fifteen year old Valley girl when asking Coons if he's a Marxist or not.

Jessica, I hate to break to you honey but either you've got no sense of humor or irony what so ever, or you're a tool asking this guy ridiculous questions about something you're already fully aware of, but you're going to make him defend it anyway just to put him in the spot. I'm thinking the latter is more likely. CNN, keep up the good work proving you're just as bad as ClusterFox when it comes to making a mockery of anyone that wants to put the word "journalist" next to their name that works for either of your organizations.

YELLIN: OK. Most voters know very little about you at this point, but one of the few things that has gotten some attention is an article you wrote in college. In it you described yourself as quote, "a bearded Marxist". Would you explain to us what that means? Are you a Marxist?

COONS: No, I'm not, Jessica. And I hope folks will a moment and actually read the article because it is clearly a tongue in cheek reference to how Republicans on campus, friends of mine, former roommates of mine, viewed my transformation from a young Republican to a Democrat.

I am not now nor have I ever been a Marxist or an enemy of the people of the United States. And frankly at a time when we've got 35,000 Delawareans out of work, when we've got real economic problems to tackle, I'm just disappointed that we're spending time talking about the title of an article written in a student newspaper 25 years ago.

But I think it is important to speak to it and put it to bed. I'm not a Marxist. I've never held Marxist ideas. I believe strongly in the free enterprise system and have worked hard for eight years in one of Delaware's most innovative private sector manufacturing firms and have a good and strong working relationship with the private sector as county executive.

YELLIN: OK, now, you say you're disappointed in the coverage of that. Your opponent Christine O'Donnell is actually getting a lot more negative attention for things she did in her past than you are. To what do you attribute that?

COONS: Well, I think both of us, as you put it, are relatively unknown on the national stage. And my opponent has been more than a decade as a pundit on television, so there are lots of clips of her saying things that I'm sure she wished there weren't files of right now. But again, what really matters is not what was said in some student newspaper or what was said in some interview 10 or 20 years ago. What matters is what are our ideas for getting this economy back on track, for improving America, for fixing what's wrong with Washington --