There are questions that are questions, and questions that are trapped. Questions that shouldn’t be asked, and if ask shouldn’t be answered because they’re unanswerable without stepping into the trap of the person asking the question. “Do you still beat your wife?” is one example. But there are other loaded questions that are more popular than ever in our post-9/11 world, and have become more popular rhetorical weapons, usually wielded by conservatives to cudgel liberals or progressives into a corner they can’t escape from with complex , polysyllabic answers.
In fact, in most cases the person asking question follows up by screaming “Yes or no!” as the other person tries to stammer out an answer. Thus leaving them two bad choices; an answer that will get them labeled a hypocrite, or an answer that will get them labeled a liar.
So, I kind of feel sorry that Nancy Pelosi faced the latest version of the post 9/11 “Do you still beat your wife?” question when she appeared on Fox News this weekend, to be asked “Do you pray for our troops?”
WALLACE: You said the other day that you were praying for President Bush…
PELOSI: Yes.
WALLACE: … to change his mind about vetoing SCHIP. Do you pray for our soldiers to win in Iraq?
PELOSI: Of course I do.
WALLACE: To win?
PELOSI: Of course I do. Of course. What a question.
What a question, indeed, but she answered it. And she kept answering it
WALLACE: When you pray for President Bush, what do you pray for?
PELOSI: I pray that — well, at the same as I pray for him, I pray for America’s children and that there can be some compatibility in their thinking. But I pray for his health, his well being. I pray that he makes the right decisions for the American people.
But when I…
WALLACE: Do you ever pray for him to change his policies?
PELOSI: All the time. But let me draw a line. When I was growing up in politics, we were always told that we shouldn’t pray for a political outcome, that we just pray that God’s will would be done.
We pray for the children. We pray for poor people. And we pray for people who need help. And we always, always, always pray for our men and women in uniform who make our freedom to pray possible.
I remember when the first war in Iraq broke out. I was in college at the time and immediately joined the protests on the UGA campus. I stood as counter protesters marched by, and spoke at an MLK Day ceremony at the site of the peace camp that sprang up on UGAs north campus. And the question then was pretty much the same question remixed for Nancy Pelosi on Fox.
“Do you support the troops?”
You can’t say “no.” And if you say “yes” but don’t support the war then you’re a liar and/or a hypocrite, because there’s only one way to “support the troops” and that’s to support the war or shut up. Do anything else — like question the mission or demand that our troops be brought home, and out of harms way — and (ironically enough) you’re not supporting the troops.
Because there’s only one way to support the troops. And if you pray for them, there’s only one “right” thing to pray for.
For them “to win.” But what does “winning” in Iraq even look like at this point? Why step into his frame and thus into his crosshairs by saying on the one hand that you do pray for them to “win”? There are any number of answers that Pelosi could have given — Nacho rightly suggests “The War Prayer” by Mark Twain. But the problem is that those answers are answers you can’t give in America today. At least, not if you’re a politician who wants to stay in office and, thus, in power.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
And if you’re going to answer the question, and give the “right” answer, then as Twain points out you have to accept all of that answer and all that it implies.
Why not answer that question with a question? “Do you pray for our soldiers, Chris? What do you pray for? If we’re praying for different things, which of us is praying for the wrong thing?
The point of the question is that there is a wrong thing to pray for. For example, praying that our soldiers come home safe and come home soon might be the “wrong” thing to pray for, because it doesn’t sound like praying for a “win.”
The other point of the question is that there’s only the one to the unasked question that’s implied. At least, one answer any politician who wants to stay in office and stay in power is going to give.
Because to ask “Do you pray for our soldiers?” is to ask “Do you pray?”
And no politician — Democrat or Republican — is going to say or even imply that she or he does not pray.
Crossposted from The Republic of T.
And no politician — Democrat or Republican — is going to say or even imply that she or he does not pray.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? To be a politician in the US you have to believe in the power of prayer.
Why, indeed? I know she has a lot of things on her mind, what with all those nasty anti-war vagrants hanging out on her lawn, but why do Democratic leaders keep making these minor league mistakes that result in major league embarrassment when it comes to making their points in very public venues?
This is all so simple, Nancy. Does she not yet understand how to do this type of thing? Has she not learned anything in the last twenty years watching the Democrats get eviscerated at every turn by the right wing media for things like this?
This is what drives all of us out here in the Democratic base absolutely bonkers. When we were watching Bill Clinton twist Wallace’s shorts into knots over his framing about the Clinton administration’s efforts to get Bin Laden, it was an absolutely textbook example on how you get it done when dealing with these bozos. Yet people like Nancy just don’t get it. No matter how many times you tell her, “Nancy, watch out for that big pile of shit over there. Whatever you do Nancy, don’t step in that BIG PILE OF SHIT–RIGHT THERE!!!”, she still steps in the pile of shit. To be fair, this doesn’t happen all the time. But it happens often enough that it allows them to feed on it and beat the drum on it for days on end.
(Sigh)………………Will they ever learn?
She laid down with a dog, and she picked up a flea.
What particular question does not matter, she WAS going to get a question that would put her in a box, and then be pressed on it.
Here is a better question;
Why in the world would ANY democrat go on Fox news? They are feeding the machine that wants their destruction.
Let’s face it, at this time progressives are going to have to accept Pelosi is not particularly bright. She looked trrible on the View last week. This alone would not be all that bad. Except she is a ‘not particularly bright’ person who does not agree with many progressive positions.
When she was named speaker several incidents (Harman, Murtha) were used by pundits (talk about ‘not bright!) to say she was not ready for prime time. I hate to say, they were correct.
nalbar
The seeming lack of understanding by some Democrats of the ruthlessness with which this game of politics is played by those on the right is truly stunning at times.
In many ways the Democrats seem to be trying to play by a different rule book than their opponents and it often leaves them looking “not particularly bright”, timid and ineffectual.
If nancy doesn’t get the folks parked outside her home how the hell can you sympathize with her. She knew what the potential was when she agreed to go on faux. And frankly, she did well. There is a greater tragedy here. She should not have gone on faux. And she should press her dem reps to shun that bullshit network. If she wants to get out her positions, let her chose more wisely.
I can’t sympathize with her. I pity her for her failing her national constituency. “Impeachment is off the table.”Puhleeeeeze! This is the LEADER? Comprimise? That word should not exist for the next20 months!Work together? Every single time the dems have tried to work together, look what it has gotten them.
I wonder how she will spin the SCHIP failure? Can’t wait to see this one!
I’ll have to take your word on how she did. I can’t stomach Fox. It does my blood pressure no good. I think the Democrat-Fox situation is really a lose-lose for them. One the one hand it is probably not politically wise to totally ignore them but on the other hand if you do go on there you’d better damn well be aware of one thing. If you’re going to wrestle with a skunk, you’d better be prepared to come away with a least some level of stench emanating from your body for the foreseeable future.
She goes on Fox Noise but she refuses to go on Steven Colbert’s show…afraid maybe she’ll look like a fool? Hey she’s already done that.
I think John Edwards said he’d not go on Fox as there wouldn’t be any point.
Here in mAssachusetts health insurance is mandatory.
Remember though they don’t have to actually pay your medical bills, just create the illusion they will.
Insurance companies have realized the power of plan scamming. In my two claims to United Health Care they have been wrong twice. First they said I owed the co-pay I have a doctors’ office paid receipt for. Then they denied lab work and an annual visit for my wife saying Patient’s insurance was cancelled. They did though continue paying for medications all through this period.
Also every other co-worker in this very same plan has also reported consistent and repeating problems with benefit claims.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=…02&rfi=%5C’
Big reason the government has no business demanding we carry health insurance when they refuse to regulate it, are not competent to regulate it and or have their heads so far up their…..
So before mAssachusetts’s “pioneering” new health care plan becomes a “model” for the nation don’t be fooled.
If that’s not enough you can also Google health care privacy and see how once your medical records reach a computer, any computer your “rights” are as meaningless as asbestos dust from the twin towers.