CNN anchor awkwardly discusses how hitting children is like training a dog

A casual discussion of slavery? Check. An awkward allusion to black "culture?" Check. A simile about training children and dogs? Uh, check?

A CNN panel on Wednesday waded into the debate over using corporal punishment on children, and it went about as uncomfortably as you'd expect, with anchor Don Lemon at one point defending the practice by saying, "you have to do what you have to do."

"I went to training with — I hate to do this — with my dog," he said. "And fear is the same thing. You have to teach who's in control."

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To be fair, Lemon drew a distinction between hitting a child and the type of abuse that Adrian Peterson is accused of. (Peterson beat his son with a tree branch that left cuts on the child's legs and scrotum.) And he said he had "evolved" on the issue over the past few days in light of the discussion Peterson's arrest sparked.