[Mb-civic] I'm So Glad You Asked ... Michael Kinsley

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kinsley3oct03.story

MICHAEL KINSLEY

I'm So Glad You Asked ...
 Michael Kinsley

 October 3, 2004

 What's a good question to ask a politician on television? This itself is an
important question because TV interviews have become central to our
democracy. They are the main point of contact between citizens and political
leaders. Politicians' speeches are one-actor plays written by someone else,
or by a committee. The presidential news conference is almost dead. Because
of the separation of powers, the United States has never had the healthy
democratic tradition of prime minister's question time, in which the
nation's leader submits to interrogation by the legislature.

 Only the occasional TV interview, including those we call debates, stand
between us and an automaton presidency, in which every moment of public
exposure is scripted. Trouble is, answers in TV interviews ‹ especially the
presidential debates ‹ are scripted too. A great question, therefore, is one
that gets the politician "off message."

 Based on six years of trying, on CNN's "Crossfire," I can say with
reasonable assurance that you cannot get a politician to answer a question
if he or she doesn't want to. What's worse, the simple techniques of evasion
are spreading. By the time I left "Crossfire" in 1995, minor members of
Congress and the heads of small-time interest groups were as slick as
major-state senators had been in 1989. Nowadays, they're probably teaching
Basic Media Evasion in kindergarten. ("Look, Mike, the American people don't
care whether I belted Mary Louise during milk-and-cookies. They are far more
concerned about the need for new nap mats, which is why I have proposed a
three-part plan that would guaranteeŠ.")

 My inadequate solution was to pose a question three times and give up,
hoping the evasion would at least be obvious. But for that or any other
technique, the follow-up question is essential.

 In Thursday night's presidential debate, the questions from Jim Lehrer
found the perfect midpoint between the League-of-Women-Voters-style
("senator, please tell us your position on healthcare") and the gotcha
approach of "Crossfire" or Tim Russert ("two years ago you said tomayto, yet
now you say tomahto"). But the stupid rules forbade Lehrer all but the most
decorous and neutral follow-up. So, for example, when John Kerry unfurled
(not once but twice) his silly, prepared "socko" sound bite about how
President Bush had "outsourced" the war in Afghanistan instead of using
American fighters, Lehrer couldn't say: "Wait a minute. Isn't your big
complaint about Iraq that Bush has not outsourced that war? What's the
difference?" And then when Bush launched into semi-comprehensible bragging
about his "multilateral" approach to the nuclear threat from North Korea, no
one could ask why this multilateral magic was so wrong when Kerry applied it
to Iraq.

 To answer these questions would require a bit of thought or truly brazen
evasiveness. In either case, we might learn something interesting. Moreover,
the main purpose of a follow-up question isn't to reduce the politician to
stunned sobs (although that would be nice) but to enforce some degree of
intellectual honesty. It's more about putting pressure on his first answer
than hoping for improvement in his second.

 But before the follow-up, what's the perfect question? The
tell-us-your-position approach is hopeless. You might as well elect a Xerox
machine and be done with it.

 The gotcha approach is better, but there is good gotcha and bad gotcha. A
good gotcha question is looking for insight. A bad gotcha question is just
looking to move the story along. ("Congressman, your opponent has accused
you of negative campaigning for saying that he has unfairly attacked you for
criticizing him over an ad by some of his supporters alleging that your ads
about him are inaccurate. What's your response?") Unfortunately, any pol
with a Boy Scout Merit Badge for Intermediate Evasiveness can parry any kind
of gotcha, even a gotcha with follow-ups.



 A different technique for cracking the carapace is the personal question. A
terrific current practitioner is Terry Gross of public radio's "Fresh Air."
On radio, without all the stressful atmospherics of TV, her malicious trick
is to seduce her subjects into a real conversation. In the cool dark,
chatting pleasantly about the pleasant subject of themselves, her victims
often slip pleasantly off-message. Charlie Rose often achieves the same
effect with long, dizzying questions that circle up, down and around like a
roller coaster, then dump the disoriented guest into a void of silence,
which he or she then fills revealingly.

 But the formality and bright lights of a presidential debate are unlikely
to produce unintended personal revelation. So what's left? The best question
of the presidential campaign so far came back in January. The questioner was
John DiStasio of the Manchester Union Leader. He asked all the Democratic
contenders during a debate: Would you "pledge now to use your power as
president Š to actively oppose any efforts" to take away the New Hampshire
primary's first-in-the-nation status.

 At first this sounded uniquely dumb. On second thought, it seemed uniquely
brilliant. First, a specific call to action makes evasion difficult. You can
blather on if you want, but you either take the pledge or you don't. Second,
it blindsides the victim with a subject he probably has no spin prepared
for. Third, it sets up a delicious Faustian bargain: You can be exposed to
the nation as a ludicrous panderer, or you can refuse to pander and alienate
New Hampshire during the few moments every four years when anyone gives a
damn what New Hampshire thinks.

 Unfortunately, Sen. Joe Lieberman, who got the question, found a brilliant
solution. He did an exaggerated pander ‹ "I will pledge to the death to
protect the New Hampshire primary, so help me God."

 This signaled to the rest of the country that he was joking, while still
giving New Hampshirites a guarantee that he wouldn't mess with their
primary. Spin, 1. New Hampshire, 0.

 So the search for the perfect question goes on. Any suggestions?




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