It seems the the White House press corps includes people who believed it when they were told as children that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. I assure you there most certainly is, and many of them are coming today from some of the men and women who cover the White House.
Consider, for example, what CNN’s Jim Acosta shouted this week in Singapore at Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s potbellied boy-dictator.
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“Will you give up your nuclear weapons, sir?” the CNN reporter asked before Kim and President Trump had even sat down for their planned summit on the denuclearization of North Korea.
Acosta’s answer was met with predictable silence.
It’s not that Acosta shouted the question. It’s what he asked. Questioning whether Kim planned to give up his nukes before the North Korean boy-king had even discussed the matter with the U.S. president is a lot like a sports journalist asking an athlete before a big championship game, “Do you think you’re going to win?”
That’s the sort of lame-brained, gee-golly question that makes athletes and coaches want to rip their hair out in frustration.
Then, there’s people like Playboy correspondent Brian Karem, whose questions tend to be heavy on the theater, light on the substance.
In reference to the Trump administration’s odious practice of separating illegal immigrant families, Karem went on a self-indulgent tirade at a White House presser this week.
[Related: Sarah Sanders loses patience over questions on family separation]
“Don’t you have any empathy? Come on, Sarah. You’re a parent. Don’t you have any empathy for what these people are going through?” he shouted. “They have less than you do. Sarah, come on, seriously.”
He continued shouting, “These people have nothing, they come to the border with nothing, and they [border patrol agents] throw children in cages. You’re a parent. You’re a parent of young children. Don’t you have any empathy for what they go through?”
This feels less like a pursuit of truth and more like an amateur re-enactment of the cigarette scene from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Lastly, there are people like American Urban Radio Networks’ April Ryan, who once asked the White House press secretary whether Trump was considering resigning. What was Ryan really expecting with this question? A “yes” answer? Don’t be daft.
Don’t mistake this as an attack on the press. This is only to argue that there are some very, very dumb questions coming out of the White House’s press corps. There’s a lot of “gotcha” wordplay. There is also plenty of posturing. What there’s precious little of is useful information.
