Indulge me a bit more, if you would. The thread is at almost 7,200 replies; I think it will survive.
I guess I don’t see this question as assuming an unsatisfactory answer, if it’s based on satisfactorily accepted premises.
To only point out the policy contradictions in reporting the interview would deprive Ryan of the chance to explain his position. I find that to be a worse way to handle the situation.
For the sake of argument, how would you have asked the question? Would something like this be okay?
Asking how the question could have been asked better is pointless. It’s a silly question, because the underlying assumption is that Ryan’s only policy is cutting taxes. I know we like to point out how Republicans talk about little else, but even the most rabid leftists among us will concede that they do talk about other things.
The problem appears to be that the questioner did not go to the trouble of establishing that the premises had been satisfactorily accepted by all parties to the interview.
No problem, I’m enjoying the discussion. I don’t think we’ll exactly drown out stupid Republican ideas even if we try.
Yes, I think that question would be fine. But that’s because it’s focused on providing Ryan “the chance to explain his position.” And that’s my point, which you seem to have elided above. It doesn’t matter whether a question assumes an unsatisfactory answer, an ideologically problematical answer or the most brilliant answer possible in the most brilliant of possible worlds. The irresponsible thing about the question is just that it assumes a particular answer. And in this case, a particular answer of a broadly stereotypical stripe.
Again, it’s the reporter’s business to find out who, what, where, when, why and how, and then to report and possibly explain that information to the public. It may even be the reporter’s job to analyze the info and place it in a particular context (depending on the type of story). It’s not the reporter’s job to tell the interviewee (or the viewer/reader) what (s)he is thinking is in the guise of asking about it. -Particularly when they’re pitching straw, as the reporter in question was doing by implying Ryan believes he can shore up law enforcement by:
In other words, Reporter is pretending Ryan’s expressed methodology for improving any given social policy priority is through the mechanism of tax reduction, which even to Paul Ryan is ridiculous and insulting.
Congress critter Paul Broun, member of Committee on Science, Space and Technology, says evolution and ideas that the earth is 4 billion years old are “lies, straight from the pit of hell.”
I think he’s confused. The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is not supposed to be a debate about whether science should exist or not. That’s taken as a given, is my understanding.
Didn’t that Akins guy also say he got his information about women being able to self-abort in cases of rape from a doctor, too? I want to meet that “doctor,” assuming he exists…
