It's bad enough that candidates have to sum up their stands on complicated issues in 15, 30 or 60 second sound bites. Now they're being asked to do it by raising their hands in response to over-simplified hypothetical questions, like a bunch of kindergarten students. Moderator Wolf Blitzer used this tactic at least 4 times during Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate, usually to try to make those who didn't immediately raise their hands look weak on national security.
Such tactics demean the moderating journalists, the candidates and the American people. Is this any way to pick the most powerful leader in the world? Could one find a better example of what Al Gore has called The Assault on Reason in the title to his new book?
For example, Blitzer asked the presidential candidates to raise their hands if they agreed that they would take out Osama Bin Laden if the US had intelligence on his whereabouts, that they had only 20 minutes to act, but doing so would cause civilian casualties. This is clearly an over-simplified scenario, one more likely to occur in an episode of 24 than in the real world, so it's a silly way to try to determine how strongly a president would work to protect the security of the American people. Moreover, it's not reasonably answerable by a simple yes or no.
A responsible president would have to consider, among other things, how good the intelligence source was, what military force was available on 20 minutes notice, and how many civilians would be killed in the action -- one or two or thousands. What if the only way to take him out was by dropping a nuclear bomb on a village? As Hillary pointed out to Blitzer, this question can't be answered in the abstract. It would depend in part, she said, on whether we could do it without a lot of collateral damage. Besides, Obama added, the Bush administration failed to get Bin Laden when they had him trapped, in order to divert soldiers to Iraq, thus making the US less secure.
It appeared that Blitzer was trying to make any Democrat who wouldn't shoot his or her hand up that they would take out Bin Laden, without knowing more information, look "soft" on terrorism. In fact, any potential president that would try to answer such a hypothetical with a simple yes or no would be frighteningly irresponsible, someone too dangerous to have their finger on the nuclear trigger
Blitzer later proceeded to ask the candidates to raise their hands if they agreed that the United States should use military force to stop genocide in Darfur. No hands were raised right away and there was a lot of murmuring about whether Blitzer meant enforcing a no fly zone.
Finally, Hillary stepped forward to say she wouldn't engage in those kinds of hypotheticals. One of the jobs of a president, she said, is to bring a reasoned approach to the issues and she didn't think it was useful to be talking in those kind of abstract terms. At that point Obama jumped in to say that the candidates wouldn't raise their hands anymore. Hillary and Obama's responses were met with the loudest applause of the night, indicating that, at least for this group of New Hampshire citizens, voters don't want vital issues of national security reduced by the media to yes or no answers.
The Democratic contenders should agree among themselves that the next time a so-called journalist asks them to answer a question by raising their hands, they will all keep their hands down and tell him or her that they refuse to let the media demean the political process that way. Serious issues deserve serious answers. If Republicans want to reduce complex questions to yes or no answers, let them.
Sorry, Mr. Blitzer. Kindergarten is out.