A CNN spokesman confirms that the network asked Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval to ask Hillary Clinton if she preferred diamonds or pearls at last night’s Democratic presidential debate. Parra-Sandoval had wanted to ask Clinton about Yucca Mountain, the controversial proposed nuclear waste repository. Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central reports

Okay, we’ve got some more detail for you on the controversy surrounding CNN and the girl who asked Hillary whether she prefers “diamonds or pearls” at the close of last night’s debate.

Specifically, a CNN spokesperson confirmed to me that the network chose that question and asked her to ask it.

But in the network’s defense the spokesperson also says that the girl wasn’t “forced” to ask it. She submitted the question in advance — it was her question — and voluntarily agreed to ask it. CNN selected the question and asked her towards the close of the debate if she wanted to ask it. She said yes.

As you may have heard by now, the girl said on her MySpace page that she was forced to ask this question and that she would have preferred to ask one about Yucca Mountain. She said this in response to the storm of criticism and ridicule the question has since received.

And it looks like the girl is right: Though she did submit the question, CNN did select it and ask her to pose it.

According to Mark Ambinder:

Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred “diamonds or pearls” at last night’s debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

“Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN,” Luisa writes. “I was asked to submit questions including “lighthearted/fun” questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance.”

Here’s the video of Parra-Sandoval asking the diamonds vs. pearls question.

As Jodi Kantor points out, the feeling of exploitation is an unpleasant one.

David Bohrman, Washington bureau chief and senior vice president of CNN, defended the network’s decision. “I thought it would be a nice way to end because we had had a couple of hours of tension,” he said, pointing out that Ms. Parra-Sandoval had written the question herself. “Not every question has to deal with life or death.”

Ms. Parra-Sandoval isn’t alone: regular people who are put on display during the show that is a presidential race can end up feeling used. But the odd thing about this particular incident is that Ms. Parra-Sandoval does not seem the least bit frivolous or bling-minded. A former illegal immigrant whose parents clean and do laundry for Las Vegas hotels, she attends a UNLV honors program on scholarship and work-study programs. Two summers ago, she interned for Senator Harry Reid; last summer, she won a fellowship in public policy at Princeton. She wants to be an immigration lawyer when she’s older.

This morning, looking at the commentary her question drew on the Internet, she saw her question compared to the famous choice President Bill Clinton was asked to make during his 1992 campaign.

“I didn’t want to be known as the girl who asked something about boxers or briefs,” she sighed.

Nonetheless, we at Shallow Nation will not forget who selected the question, and it certainly was not Truman scholarship finalist Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval. It is CNN who decided that the American public needed diamonds and pearls, not a serious question about the serious and pressing matter of the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear depository.