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Watching a bit of MSNBC’s Super Tuesday while Sam Brownback was being interviewed today underscored one of the most annoying habits of candidates for political office. Much was made last night about “real questions from real people” - the pundits said that the more personal nature of these questions “made it harder to avoid the question or deliver a prepared speech in response.” The same argument goes for the town-hall style debates/meetings that the pundits compared the YouTube debate to.

I disagree.

These candidates are fabulous at dodging in a new way, perhaps even a bold way, by attempting to become the “teachers” of the American people. Almost all of these candidates fail UTTERLY using this tactic. The vast majority of the Republicans say: The question is not WHEN we get out of Iraq, but the question is CAN we leave, the answer to which is that we cannot. Last night among the Democrats the mantra was a bit more humble: “I’m staying on topic, but I think the what Person X is REALLY ASKING is…” Great debate tactic. You get asked a question, and respond, “That is not the question. This is the question.” This smacks of hubris, and I hope that it is as apparent to everyone else as it is to me.

The problem is that each candidate hears a question, reformats the question into self-parsable terms (after all, if behavior is an indication, normal terms are not understandable, but must be mutated into Republican- or Democrat-speak, a particular kind of Newspeak), states the question to be invalid, and states the new question, straight out of talking-points, and proceeds to give a short slogan.

Now, the irony is that the American people WANT this KIND of leader - this is what Americans THINK OF as a LEADER. Any kind of leader, president or not. And, Americans, just like people in general, WANT a leader. Even with the alleged anti-establishment and individual-responsibility qualities we’re said to posses. The public in general wants someone to tell them, “No, this is a better answer - and by the way, this is a better question - a higher question, an inspiring question.” We DO want the better questions to ask ourselves and each other. But, hopefully, we also know the difference between better questions and reformatted, incomplete, inadequate questions which lead to incomplete, inadequate, and inept answers. This is the type of president that most of the “Famous Great Presidents” have been. They have been able to ASK BETTER QUESTIONS to move debate or society or culture or ideas forward. Any president involved in the Continental Congress or Constitutional Conventions is easily of this type. Lincoln and FDR both are of this type, as is Kennedy, and often the three are on many people’s “best” list.

The only people in my memory, which is recent, that could become this manner of leader would be the man that used to be McCain (who knows what he is now) and Biden. They at least, to a certain extent, reject the constrained views of reality posed by only comprehending partisan language and questions in the pre-formatted soundbye way. It would be nice to see Biden break out a bit, despite his problems with plaigiarism in the past.

I love watching Tucker Carlson, and I have since back in the Crossfire days. I was ecstatic to see him picked up by MSNBC. Now, I don’t necessarily agree with him, but he’s a good counter-balance to some of my opinions and natural inclinations. He’s at least normally (though not always) cordial (unlike Novak), but something has changed within the past few weeks. He’s become RABID! I’ve had to turn down the volume just to get through his program, and his ad homina have become more frequent, less entertaining, and less forseen. Perhaps it is a result of his compression to a single hour, instead of broadcast for two hours in the afternoon? I’m not sure what it is, but his show feels like it lacks much of the substance it had two weeks ago - though I’m not sure I can always tell through the added volume.

My ideas lead me to views, my views do not lead me to ideas. I still have views, informed by the deliberative process of thought. Your challenge is to present new ideas.