Answer the Question, Please
Do you hate when politicians refuse to answer questions directly, and the interviewer lets them get away with it? My solution: TV show called “Who Can Stand?” Political guests are asked where they stand (get it?) on a list of issues. Their choices are recorded on a giant wall chart. When they answer with spin, party rhetoric, patriotic cliches, etc., it adds to their “slime” score. A question is repeated five times. Guests who slime-out on five questions are scored as “Can’t Stand.”
Pete Baker: Ideally it should be hosted by John Houseman in his professor persona from “Paper Chase”.
Jim Minton: ABC columist asked Senator Rockefellar a question the other day during a interview and Senator Reid wrestled the mic from him to answer the question and of course spewed misdirected hate.
Tom Beaver: Jim, I don’t like politicians spewing hate, misdirected or otherwise. Whether I agree with their policies or not. Do you feel the same?
Jim Minton: Perhaps we should have a spew meter on the tv and anytime hate comes out when watching any politician, we can zap them with 50,000 volts. I kind of like that
Tom Beaver: Let’s put that button on Facebook, too.
Tom Beaver: Because there a lot more people spewing hate than politicians. I would argue that the politicians only get away with it because there are now so many voters who consider it a meaningful way to discuss issues.
Jim Minton: Tom, you remember when walter cronkite was the only voice on television? And we were suppose to trust him and the politicians who work for you? I kind of like the idea of calling out a politician, emailing him and actually discussing this stuff on the net. I think we are more informed than ever before, but it also has it’s downside with misinformation..
Tom Beaver: So, Jim, I like your idea and would take it farther. If a viewer pushes the zapper on a politician and a panel of judges decides it was uncalled for (was itself an act of hate or poor judgement), the viewer himself gets zapped.
Jim Minton: Ah yes equality, see what the facts are, can’t manipulate with words of omission. I could see that but dang you better be sure of what you say..ouch!
Jim Minton: so speeches would be 10 seconds in length..lol and this also applies to all tv and radio shows including xm/sirius
Tom Beaver: Yes, Jim, I agree — we are more misinformed than ever before. I consider 24-hour “news” one of the big culprits, in several ways. Not just the obvious one of some programs not practicing real journalism. But the fact that politicians must now be constantly giving statements. It puts politicians at our beck and call, and that’s like putting the students in charge of the school, or the patients in charge of their own surgery. It has allowed the masses to constantly interfere with governing and to set the agenda, and the tone, at a lower and lower level.
Tom Beaver: Jim — I go the other way on length. Politicians have to give long answers to every question and their speeches have to be long, too. But long without fluff. They only get to use each emotion-word once per hour (words like “America,” “capitalism”, “the troops,” “free-enterprise”, “God” and so on.
Tom Beaver: Also, each politician has to repeat the question so we are sure they understood it. And at key points they have to paraphrase what they understand as their opponent’s view on a given issue. If they misunderstand or mischaracterize their opponents’ view — zap.
Tom Beaver: And there is another weekly show, called “Are You Qualified.” Sort of a quiz show. Politicians complete against high school students on questions about history, government, economics, foreign affairs and policy issues. There is a “fun” segment where the contestants must read a paragraph from literature and paraphrase it, to test their general abilities in comprehension and logic.
Jim Minton: I like the idea of knowing what our congressmen/women are doing. where there was little if any accountability, now town hall meetings bring on a more cleaner approach of what is going on in washington and the congressmen will be held accountable for the work they are doing or voting on. There are still back room deals being made, and I would like to see no washington deals (riders). Washington Politics would have a whole new meaning. We could have a eye movment, blood pressure heart rate monitor on our TV, and if any of those start to deviate we would give them a warning blast...
Tom Beaver: I like those things, too — citizens being able to see how politicians are voting, what they’re saying directly to their base versus what they’re saying to the general public, what legislation is being passed. And it’s good that we have a lot of people being watchdog for us. BUT! This means we citizens have a much bigger responsibility than before. If we’re going to participate, we have to do it intelligently, fairly, maturely, otherwise we’re just causing trouble for everyone. And that’s what I see happening. The quality of public discussion is sickeningly bad. We’re getting closer and closer to mob rule. And this gives the politicians and big interests an opportunity use our blind rage against us. Which they’re doing.
Tom Beaver: (Not all politicians and big interests are taking advantage of us this way...but we do have to be smart about who’s on our side and who is just a wolf in sheep’s clothing)
Laurie Ann: typically, when schmucks like david gregory let a politician get away with this, i am screaming at the tv.
he was away a few weeks ago. his fill-in, samantha somebody, kept nailing the elusive politician.
chuck todd also does a good job...and amazingly enough? jon stewarat..the ‘fake’ newsman!
Tom Beaver: Tim, good thoughts. I am pretty much “yes...and” and “yes...but” to all you said.
I do think most (never say all) people go into state and federal government wanting good things for America and good will towards we the people. But some of them seem to have a restrictive definition of who “we” is and some clearly have contempt and ill-will towards their opponents and certain parts of the electorate, not only after they’ve reached office, but while trying to get there. Yeah, to some extent this must be fostered by the way politics and the media operate now and by the current populist demand for excrement and blood. But it’s reasonable to think that the politiicians and candidates who go all-in on that game will in many cases have been people of that sort before they arrived on public stage.
There are many gradations of rottenness in the political sphere. We do have to avoid being too cynical (“all politicians are corrupt...most of them hate the other side...”) and, equally, we have to avoid saying one party is just as bad as the other, out of some knee-jerk idea of balance or diplomacy. One party could logically be very much worse than the other. This is, in fact, what I believe to be the case.
I agree, the internet brings transparency to many areas of politics. Yes, some of the politicians are only now realizing this.
Not sure about the “older generations...stuck on couch” point. Most of my peers are very active online and, in particular, get a lot of their news and opinions from internet sources. These are friends from around the country, not just NYC. My circles might be a bit atypical, but I don’t think they’re VERY atyptical in this regard.
That said, TV (and print media) are still a viable way to get information, and in many cases the people who get their political news from TV and print will be the ones who are best informed. Because the news organizations doing business through TV and print tend to be offering us curated information. They have the benefit of seasoned editors, journalists, research staffs, fact checkers, access to official sources and an ingrained culture of real journalism. There are sources like that on the internet, but they float in a sea of nonsense, propaganda and astronurf. I would bet that most people who are news/politics junkies and who only get their fix from the web — that these folks are mostly shooting up the junk stuff.
Yes, very few politicians who hold to an older style of statesmanship and public discourse. The number keeps getting smaller. But I think it was always a small number who could resist the rabble-rousing, the inflammatory insinuation, the outright lie, the cheap appeal to God and the good old days and all that sneaky claptrap that makes people agree with whatever is said next. This is not to dimish how bad it has gotten lately. It has gotten very bad.
All this is why I am inventing new kinds of TV news shows.
Jim Minton: I didn’t ask for excrement, did you Tim or Laurie Ann? I’m sure if I would’ve ask for excrement , sure would’ve remembered...lol
Tom Beaver: Laurie Ann: yeah, I get infuriated with David Gregory. He should know better. And he’s sitting in the chair of Tim Russert, who was a great one for repeating his question until he either got an answer or had made it crystal clear the guest was dodging. Rachel Maddow is pretty good with this — she’ll ask the question as many as three times before giving up.
Jim Minton: wasn’t tim russert a spokesperson for mario cumo during his career before he went to meet the press? Just curious, I kind of liked him. thought he was pretty fair journalist.
Jim Minton: Tom, so i see you are friends with larry fortney. Is that the Fortney that was our english teacher?
Tom Beaver: Laurie Ann: yeah, I get infuriated with David Gregory. He should know better. And he’s sitting in the chair of Tim Russert, who was a great one for repeating his question until he either got an answer or had made it crystal clear the guest was dodging. Rachel Maddow is pretty good with this — she’ll ask the question as many as three times before giving up.
Jim Minton: i know, im just jawing with ya...usually used when a politician is losing an arugument is what they will usually use.
Laurie Ann: russert was AWESOME. gregory isn’t fit to lick his boots!
Laurie Ann: oh and i love maddow.
Tom Beaver: I know you’re funning, Jim. I’m just on one of my seriousness jags.
Jim Minton: Im not a matthews guy, and maddow I can give or take, one person I do not like at all is contessa brewer, always out of her league on interviews..
Tom Beaver: Jim: yep, that’s our Mr. Fortney.
Jim Minton: wow, had some fun with him, he is a good guy...
Tom BeaverI agree about Contessa. Just not a gifted individual. Chris Matthews: interrupts too often. Maddow: one of the best all-around explicators and interviewers I know of: she’s as fair and courteous as you can be an still have a point of view.
Tom Beaver: Yeah, he was a good guy. Was very encouraging to me as a young writer, and he’s still that way. We correspond from time to time. He’s semi-retired and teaching part time. Still doing what he loves.
Tom Beaver: Dunno about Russert’s background. Just know him from Meet The Press and thought he was excellent there.
Jim Minton: is he still married? I always enjoyed his outlook on life.. he was one of the good guys
Tom Beaver: Yep, Fortney is still married, with some grown kids. Somehow a lot of my specific memories of classes are from his classroom. He brought in song lyrics from rock songs, showed great movies, got us reading and discussing Shakespeare and other great literature, had us write journals, had a knack for getting the whole class into interesting discussions. I always thought we were lucky to have someone like him in our little town, interested in ideas and the arts and good at sharing that vibe.
Tom Beaver: Fortney’s wife invited me to he retirement party some years back. Wish I could have attended.
Jim Minton: I couldn’t agree with you anymore. remember discussing songs from the mamas and the papas and what the songs meant. Honestly never thought about songs that way, now I always wonder what the writer was thinking. The same with Larry Scott the art teacher.. Always had me thinking..
Tom Beaver: Larry Scott, yessir, another good one. The conversations in his classroom were formative. Those were heady days, weren’t they? Our generation was speaking out and getting political in a big way, through action and talk and music, and those chatfests in Scott’s art room was a way for us to get in on it. We were probably in some of those conversations together. I remember you hanging around the art room a lot. I took a lot of art classes, but I seem to remember that you just came in there to hang.
Jim Minton: Use to love talking with him, and seeing what was going on in his classroom. He was a mover and a shaker when it came to political and social talk. You knew he had a glass eye, right? Do you know how he got it?
Jim Minton: Yes sir we were pretty fortunate to have some young people as teachers in our high school. I remember dick stratman and he was always using the term life liberty and the pursuit of happiness as a period to all his thoughts...lol
Rob McCaskill — I like this idea. Especially the “slime” part. I’ve often imagined 100 independent voters, sitting in the audience with digital pads that can register, “Okay” or “You’re dodging the question.” The politician sees when most of the audience doesn’t buy his answer. And the people at home see it, too. Then, the moderator simply says, “Most people don’t think you’re answering the question.”
Tom Beaver: Good refinement of the idea, Rob. You’re hired.
Tom Beaver: Because the hard part is coming up with a judging system that is objective. Jury of peers is a good solution.