I have a question for the American news media.
When did asking a political candidate an uncomfortable question become an act of aggression?
I’m serious.
I thought that was part of the job.
You run for public office. You tell the American people you want to represent them. You ask for their votes, their confidence, and, eventually, the authority to make decisions affecting their lives.
And somewhere along the way, somebody might ask you something you don’t particularly enjoy answering.
Welcome to politics.
This week, I watched an exchange involving Michigan’s U.S. Senate race that reminded me just how differently the political press can treat those uncomfortable questions.
Republican Mike Rogers challenged Democrat Abdul El-Sayed over concerns involving the Muslim Brotherhood and associations within his family.
El-Sayed responded by emphasizing his commitment to America and the Constitution, including its protection of religious freedom.
Fair enough.
Every American has the right to practice his religion. That includes Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and anybody else who wants to worship without a politician standing over his shoulder demanding an explanation.
That is not negotiable.
But neither is the right of voters to ask candidates questions about their political beliefs, affiliations, and judgment.
Those are two separate matters.
And apparently, keeping them separate has become a remarkably difficult assignment for some people in television news.
ABC’s coverage emphasized that Rogers had attempted to connect El-Sayed to Islamic extremism without presenting evidence in the exchange it showed.
Now, if a candidate makes an accusation, he ought to be prepared to support it.
Absolutely.
But I listened to more of the debate, and I heard something else.
I heard a dispute about ideology, political associations, and what a candidate should be expected to answer.
I also heard El-Sayed defending his constitutional rights.
And I found myself wondering why the discussion had to become a choice between those two things.
Why can’t a candidate defend his religious freedom and answer a political question?
Why must one automatically cancel out the other?
Here’s where this gets interesting.
El-Sayed has, in fact, denounced the Muslim Brotherhood. That came up in a CNN panel discussion about the controversy.
So the argument isn’t simply that he has never addressed the organization.
The argument is about whether Rogers’s questions were fair, whether the evidence justified them, and whether El-Sayed’s answers were sufficient.
Good.
Let’s have that argument.
But let’s not pretend the very act of asking is something unheard of in American politics.
Because I have been around this business for a long time.
And I have watched political candidates get asked all kinds of questions about people they know, people they’ve worked with, people they’ve admired, and people they may have met once at a dinner party fifteen years ago.
Sometimes those questions are legitimate.
Sometimes they’re ridiculous.
Sometimes they’re designed to embarrass the candidate rather than inform the voter.
And sometimes they’re all three.
I particularly remember how often Black political figures have been asked about Louis Farrakhan.
Oh, yes.
That question has been around for decades.
A Black man gets involved in politics, and sooner or later somebody wants to know what he thinks about Farrakhan.
Does he agree with him?
Does he condemn him?
Has he ever met him?
What does he think about something Farrakhan said in 1987?
You could be running for the school board in a town where Farrakhan has never set foot, and somebody might still decide this is the most pressing issue facing the voters.
Now, I have no problem with asking about Farrakhan when there’s a relevant connection or a genuine question about a candidate’s views.
His record includes statements that deserve condemnation.
But I’ve always found it fascinating how quickly certain people become responsible for explaining the beliefs of other people.
And how selectively that responsibility gets assigned.
Republicans know something about this, too.
How many times have we watched a Republican candidate get confronted with something Donald Trump said?
“Do you condemn it?”
“Do you disavow it?”
“Do you agree with every word?”
And if the candidate gives an answer that isn’t sufficiently enthusiastic, the reporter asks again.
And again.
And again.
At some point, you begin wondering whether the candidate is running for office or applying to become the official interpreter of Donald Trump’s every waking thought.
But the questions keep coming.
And the candidate is expected to answer them.
Fine.
That’s politics.
Then somebody asks a Democrat about an association or an ideological concern, and suddenly we’re having a national discussion about whether the question itself was offensive.
Hold on.
You don’t get to establish one standard for candidates you dislike and another for candidates you admire.
If association questions are legitimate, they’re legitimate.
If they’re unfair, explain why.
And if a candidate has already answered, report the answer.
That’s not complicated.
What makes these controversies so frustrating is that the original issue often disappears beneath the argument about whether anybody should have raised it.
Instead of examining the evidence, we’re examining the interviewer’s tone.
Instead of discussing the candidate’s position, we’re discussing whether the candidate felt insulted.
And before long, everybody is debating the debate.
Meanwhile, the voter is still sitting there wondering what the candidate actually believes.
Let me make another distinction.
A person should not be held responsible for the beliefs of a relative merely because they’re related.
Good heavens, imagine if that were the standard.
Every Thanksgiving dinner in America would become a potential congressional investigation.
Somebody’s uncle says something outrageous over the turkey, and fifteen years later a Senate candidate is supposed to issue a formal statement.
We’d need congressional committees working around the clock just to investigate Christmas gatherings.
Family relationships are not proof of ideological agreement.
And accusations involving terrorism or extremism require evidence, not insinuation.
But a candidate’s own words, actions, affiliations, and political commitments are fair subjects for examination.
That’s where the distinction belongs.
Not in whether the candidate has an R or a D after his name.
Not in whether the reporter likes him.
And certainly not in whether the question makes a television audience uncomfortable.
I learned something from years of watching Rush Limbaugh deal with the political press.
Rush had an extraordinary ability to recognize when the rules were changing depending on who was being discussed.
He could spot a double standard from a considerable distance.
And he understood that one of the most effective ways to expose it was simply to apply the same rule to everybody.
You don’t need a complicated theory.
You don’t need a committee.
You don’t need seventeen consultants and a focus group.
Just ask yourself whether the same question would be considered acceptable if the political parties were reversed.
Would the reporter ask it?
Would the network defend asking it?
Would the candidate be expected to answer?
And would the answer receive the same scrutiny?
If the answer changes depending on which party benefits, we have a problem.
Because journalism isn’t supposed to be a protection racket for politicians.
It is supposed to help the public learn things that matter.
Sometimes that means exposing a false accusation.
Sometimes it means asking a difficult question.
And sometimes it means telling the audience that a candidate already answered the question, even if that makes the story considerably less exciting.
I know. Imagine television news making something less dramatic.
A revolutionary concept.
As for Michigan, the voters can judge Rogers’s questions and El-Sayed’s answers for themselves.
They can decide whether the concerns raised were supported, whether the responses were satisfactory, and which candidate deserves their vote.
That’s their job.
The press has a different one.
Give people the facts. Show them the relevant exchanges. Ask the questions that need asking.
And don’t suddenly discover a new set of journalistic manners when the candidate happens to be somebody you like.
Because if you’re asking the American people to send you to Washington, you should expect a few uncomfortable questions along the way.
Believe me, once you get there, the taxpayers are going to have plenty more.
— Bo
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