Anderson Cooper Asks the RIGHT Question (In This Case)

Even Anderson Cooper thinks people are asking the wrong questions. Though I frequently disagree with the approach and tactics of news media, on this one I happen to agree with the question Anderson Cooper asks in his pre-CNN/YouTube Republican debate: "What were they thinking?" You can view this video at http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/22/you.tube.debates/index.html and get a minimal glimpse of what some people thought it was important to ask (we'll no doubt hear the better questions at the debate itself). Mostly, this little video blurb reveals what NOT to do when videotaping yourself for a national media event.

I definitely think that we Americans take ourselves far too seriously most of the time when it comes to politics, and that it is probably good for us to lighten up from time to time. But this Anderson Cooper spot is more evidence that we're becoming collectively sillier and sillier. Perhaps we should take things like Presidential Election campaigns and our participation in them far more seriously. I mean, look what happened the last time--need I say more? Tighten up, America! Four to eight years is a long time to have to suffer the consequences of our silly attitudes toward politics.

We're Asking the Wrong Questions

Finally, someone admits he inhaled. Not that I really care one way or another; but I have to agree with Mr. Obama that the whole point was to inhale—you get no “benefit” from the drug if you don’t.

To know what I’m talking about, go to http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/ and read about how yet another presidential candidate was asked if he smoked marijuana, and how he responded to this tired, unoriginal, and unrevealing question.

When Presidential hopeful William Jefferson Clinton was asked this question he responded with the now famous, “I didn’t inhale.” Obama effectively cries, “The emperor has no clothes on!” by responding that the whole point was to inhale, underscoring the importance of being totally honest if you’re going to be honest at all.

By responding to this question in the way that he did, Obama is not making a statement about being honest so much is he is making a statement about the stupidity of some of these questions. Of course by answering honestly he diminishes the possibility that someone will be able to flag around his dirty underwear later on and compound the negative effect by having been caught in a lie.

But the real importance of Obama’s response is that it underscores how irrelevant some of these questions are. Even our own born-again President George W. Bush admits to having imbibed in illicit substances in the days prior to his entry into public office, and no one really cares, nor does anyone really think anything he did while a teenager or twenty-something affects how he runs the country today (outside of the possible deaths of a few million brain cells). The really important thing about Obama’s response is it reveals how little we care about what a candidate might have done in his or her youth that he doesn’t do now, but how persistent reporters are in continuing to ask questions about what we don’t care about.

In the blog that I’ve referenced here, Mitt Romney says, "I agree with the sentiment that nobody's perfect and most of us, if not all of us, in our youthful years have engaged in various indiscretions we wouldn't want to have paraded in the front of a newspaper...On the other hand if we're running for president, I think it's important for us not to go into details about the weaknesses and our own failings as young people for the concern that we open kids thinking that it's ok for them." This begs the question why do reporters keep asking this question? If we don’t want to set a bad example for our kids by suggesting through our own honest admissions that we may have participated in the very things that we forbid them to do (culturally and legally), and if no one really cares about what the candidate of their choice did in his/her youth when they go to the ballot box, then why do reporters and Senate committees keep asking this stupid question?

I don’t have the answer, except that it has become the status quo, somehow. Perhaps one of the reasons that we have so much trouble finding out what candidates really stand for when we are trying to decide who to vote for is that no one is asking them the right questions. While I want to find out what Mr. Obama’s position on foreign policy, health care, and the budget are, reporters are asking whether he smoked Marijuana in high school or college; and then the response to THAT question is what the news publisher (in this case CNN) thought was worthwhile enough to publish.

We need to start asking the right questions if we ever want to find out anything that is worth knowing. Who will start?