5/15 A deplorable lack of curiousity

I am always fascinated by the questions that politicians are not asked. When President Obama promised to save or create 3.5 million jobs, no one asked the most obvious followup.



Brave reporter: Mr. President, respectfully, that statement can be adapted to validate any result. A net gain of 1.5 million jobs (create 1.5 million, save 2 million), a loss of 4.5 million jobs (but for our efforts, 8 million jobs would have been lost, a catastrophe has been averted) What outcome are you actually predicting? The President's statement is a batting practice fastball but the press is not swinging.



Speaker Pelosi's press conference on Thursday highlighted a similar lack of curiousity. Her prepared statement about the CIA briefing expressly contradicted other published accounts and her own previous statement. Shouldn't someone have asked: Ms. Pelosi, can anyone who participated in the briefing, either from the Congress or the CIA support your recollection?



Her performance was weak and incoherent. She has two distinct recollections of the briefing. Both are diametrically opposed to the recollections of the other participants, notably the agency that gave the briefing. The press matched her step for step. The press today functions like a boxer's sparring partner. They give the champ a nice workout but under no circumstances do they hurt him or her. The sparring partner, however, works for the champ. Who does the press work for?



The point of Bernard Goldberg's book Bias was that viewers are capable of drawing their own conclusions. The role of the press is to provide us with information, not guidance. I am not suggesting that the press should set out to bloody the nose of a candidate, a congressman or a president. In a fair fight, sometimes a little blood gets spilled and that should not trouble the press. To have a fair fight, there must first be an adversary, not a sparring partner.