Gotcha! Then and Now Part II

Members are reminded to abide by decorum of the House.

That little bit of irony was brought to us last year by none other than the queen of decorous behavior herself, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who while temporarily presiding over a session of the House of Representatives, admonished her colleagues to remain quiet during a speech. Her remark led to an outburst of laughter from the Democrats in the chamber, and no doubt several muffled guffaws from her fellow Republicans as well. You may remember it was Greene along with her partner in chaos Lauren Boebert who loudly heckled the President of the United States, interrupting his State of the Union Address last year, calling him a liar and chanting "Build the Wall!"

In the previous post I brought up how times have changed, politically speaking, in my life. When I was a child in the early sixties, there was anger and divisiveness among Americans to be sure. But the political divide among Americans today is perhaps at its greatest, most impervious point since the Civil War. Consider this: from a recent Economist/YouGov Poll, 38 percent of Americans responded they would not approve of one of their children marrying a member of a different political party. In 1960, that number was only about 4 percent, which also happens to be the percentage of current marriages between a Republican and a Democrat. 

Perhaps this explains why the deep-down respect Americans once had for the institutions of this country spelled out in the U.S. Constitution that made certain behavior, such as that of Greene and Bobert out of bounds, is sadly a thing of the past. 

All of that was thrown out the window during my life as a pall of cynicism, distrust and even outright hatred of fellow Americans with different opinions, has replaced the respect for those institutions meant to bring us all together.

That's not to say that as a society we don't respect anything anymore. I also pointed out in the post certain issues that are held sacred to many of us today such as equal rights for women. That in particular was a fringe issue sixty years ago, barely considered at all and when it was, it received the same kind of response then, as MTG calling for decorum on the floor of the House does now.

I guess we have to take the good with the bad.

Still, I have to say, where has all the decorum gone? 

The inspiration for this duo of posts was two recent incidents where public figures got into hot water over their inadequate responses to what could be considered "gotcha questions", that is to say, inquiries that are designed by the questioner specifically to discredit the respondent.

Many sources regard one of the first such questions directed at a public figure, thereby launching the era of the gotcha question, to be the one I mentioned in the previous post where in 1992 President George H.W. Bush was asked if he ever had an extra-marital affair. Such a question of a sitting president would have been unthinkable before.

We haven't looked back since. 

Neither of the two gotcha questions I speak of were asked by members of the press. One was made by a congressperson at a congressional hearing, the other by a private citizen. I'll start with that one.

A few weeks ago at a public forum in New Hampshire, Nikky Haley, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, was asked the following: 

What caused the Civil War?

Haley responded ironically:

Now don't come with an easy question or anything...

Unless you're a Republican candidate for president from South Carolina (where the first shots of the Civil War were fired) as Haley is, this is not a difficult, let alone a gotcha question. It's not like asking for example, what caused World War I. 

No matter how much the good folks south of the Mason-Dixon Line want to claim that the causes for the American Civil War were complex, it is not a hard question at all, and indeed the question is possible to answer in one word:

Slavery.

After her comment about the difficulty of the question, Haley went into a familiar talking point saying the Civil War was:

basically [about] how the government was going to run [and] the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do.

She did not mention slavery as a contributing factor to the Civil War. 

Nikky Haley knows better. Unfortunately, many of her constituents whose votes she's depending upon in order to win the Republican nomination, are those folks in Dixie, many of whom don't take too kindly to folks upsetting the apple cart by trashing the Confederacy and making claims that what they learned all their lives in school is a misrepresentation of history. 

So for Haley this was a question with no good answer, a classic gotcha question. Had she answered honestly that yes, the Civil War WAS about state's rights and that the right they were fighting for was the right to own people, she may have just as well thrown in the towel as she would have certainly lost any momentum she might have had in the Southern primaries, especially the one in her home state whose primary takes place on February 24th. 

Instead, she followed the line of the Cult of the Lost Cause, the movement that took place in the post-reconstruction period in the south, where among other things, history was re-written to paint a rosier picture of the Confederacy. It was no doubt what she was taught as a young person in South Carolina herself and that line of reasoning probably served her well as a Southern politician, until that fateful evening in New Hampshire.

The questioner followed up by mentioning his surprise at her omission of slavery.

At that point Haley threw gasoline on the fire by defiantly responding:

What do you want me to say about slavery?

To which the questioner said triumphantly: "Thank you, you've answered my question." 

Ouch.

Nikky Haley is a consummate politician which is perhaps her biggest weakness. In a previous post I wrote about her tendency to speak out of both sides of her mouth, taking the most convenient path depending upon whom she is trying to reach. That makes it difficult to know exactly where she stands on the issues.

Her grievous omission in New Hampshire probably won't be much of a factor in her unlikely bid to become this year's Republican nominee for president, but it will come back to haunt her if she ever finds herself on a national ticket, either as candidate for president or vice president.

It's hard to know the motivation for asking a presidential candidate what has to be considered an off-the-wall question about a historical event that was settled 159 years ago. On the other hand, the reaction to Haley's gaffe proves one thing, we're still fighting that war to this day, which makes the question quite relevant. 

Well played Mr. Private Citizen. 

By contrast, there is no question about the motivation of U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik's classic gotcha question to the presidents of three major American universities at a congressional hearing looking into antisemitism at American universities, as illustrated by rallies that took place in the days following the Hamas attack on Israel this past October 7.

Similar rallies across the planet celebrating that attack as a legitimate act of protest, drew the ire of every reasonable citizen of the world who was paying attention, as their timing immediately following a despicable act of brutal terrorism, quite reasonably called Israel's 9/11, displayed (quoting myself here) remarkable "heartlessness, ignorance, stupidity and yes, antisemitism."

Many of these rallies took place on American campuses and while protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, nothing in that cherished document protects them or their participants from being criticized which sadly, few university presidents chose to do in the ensuing days.

In their defense I'd say that the October 7th terrorist attack took nearly the entire world by surprise, so the lack of preparation to deal with the reaction to it, regrettable as it was in a way, understandable.

Somewhat less understandable was the lack of preparation of the three presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard, Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT, when it came to answering what they had to know would be tough, politically charged questions at the congressional hearing in December, two months after the attack. 

Here's the gotcha question Stefanik posed to each of them, demanding a yes or no answer:

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your school’s] rules on bullying and harassment?

Like the question about the Civil War, on the surface this shouldn't be too difficult to answer. After all, American universities tend to bend over backwards in protecting their students' rights to not be harassed, bullied or just made to feel uncomfortable. It's obvious that Jewish students would feel harassed when confronted by a group demanding that they, their relatives, and every person on earth who identifies with the same ethno-religious group as they do, should be exterminated. Therefore, the answer to this question, if the universities in question are truly honest about protecting students' "safe spaces", should be an unqualified yes.

But here's where that tricky little thing called the First Amendment gets in the way. Hate speech, which is really what Stefanik is referring to here, reprehensible as it is, is protected by the Constitution, so long as it doesn't represent a direct threat to someone. This is something that every school administrator understands and that is why the three university presidents equivocated when answering the question. "It depends" they all said in one way or other. 

Elise Stefanik, herself a Harvard alumna also understands this and knew exactly how the three would have to respond. She phrased her hypothetical question in as vague terms as possible so that it could cover, depending upon one's point of view, anything from Nazi skinheads carrying baseball bats while chanting "all Jews must die", to a group of students wearing Keffiyehs, chanting "Free Palestine." 

Understanding that the job of an administrator is to consider the minutiae of everything that comes her way along with the big picture, Stefanik preaching to the masses looking only to the convenient sound bite, set a trap for the three, into which they all fell.

Despite the prepared statements of Gay, Magill and Kornbluth on the evils of anti-Semitism, (excerpts of which can be found below), and their commitment to eradicate it and all other forms of racial and ethnic hatred at their institutions, all the general public heard was their failure to put calling for the genocide of Jews at least up there with, (borrowing a line from Sam Harris), other "crimes students at college campuses lose sleep about such as cultural appropriation and using the wrong pronoun."

Elise Stefanik may or may not be sincere in her concern about antisemitism, I have no idea. But as a newly minted MAGA culture warrior on the short list of candidates as Donald Trump's running mate in the upcoming election, she made no bones about the fact that she was gunning for these three administrators who represent in the minds of the Americans she's trying to connect with, the woke, elite enemy who must be put down at all costs. 

Shortly after her testimony to the Congressional Committee and the evisceration she received for her response to Stefanik's line of questioning, Liz Magill stepped down as the President of Penn. Responding to that, Stefanik commented on social media: "That's one down and two to go."

Meanwhile up in Cambridge, the Harvard Community as well as the university's governing board the Harvard Corporation, threw their support behind Claudine Gay until reports of sloppy research work in her past became public. Facing tremendous pressure and harassment, Dr. Gay stepped down shortly thereafter. Annie Karmi of the New York Times, wrote that Stefanik, taking full credit for the administrator's demise, took a "victory lap" after Gay's resignation.

So far Stefanik has been denied the opportunity of dancing on the professional grave of Sally Kornbluth who remains president of MIT. Perhaps Stefanik's claim that Kornbluth is an antisemite has fallen upon deaf ears since Kornbluth is Jewish while Stefanik is not.

Crazy world we live in, no?

The good news in all of this is that the principle actors of this story with the exception of the guy who asked the Civil War question, are all women of tremendous influence, something that would have been unthinkable 60 years ago. 

Ever since I was a child, I've been told that the world would be a much better place if women were in charge. That always comforted me as the writing had been on the wall that women would be gaining more and more influence as time went on.

The bad news is that despite women of influence being eminently capable of leadership, strength, wisdom and insight, they are also just as capable of messing things up as men.

I guess that's what equality is all about. 

Happy 2024.

CODA: 

It would be a grave injustice for the three university presidents to be remembered primarily for the soundbites of their responses to a question designed specifically to discredit them. 

What follows are excerpts from each of the prepared statements of Claudine Gay, Liz Magill and Sally Kornbluth that were read before the House committee's hearing on antisemitism on December 5, 2023. 

Claudine Gay:

The free exchange of ideas is the foundation upon which Harvard is built, and safety and well-being are the prerequisites for engagement in our community. Without both of these things, our teaching and research mission founder. In the past two months, our bedrock commitments have guided our efforts. We have increased security measures, expanded reporting channels, and augmented counseling, mental health and support services.

We have reiterated that speech that incites violence threatens safety or violates Harvard’s policies against bullying and harassment is unacceptable. We have made it clear that any behaviors that disrupt our teaching and research efforts will not be tolerated, and where these lines have been crossed, we have taken action.

We have drawn on our academic expertise to create learning opportunities for our campus community. We have begun examinations of the ways in which anti-Semitism and other forms of hate manifest at Harvard and in American society. We have also repeatedly made clear that we at Harvard reject antisemitism and denounce any trace of it on our campus or within our community.

Antisemitism is a symptom of ignorance, and the cure for ignorance is knowledge. Harvard must model what it means to preserve free expression, while combating prejudice and preserving the security of our community. We are undertaking that hard, long term work with the attention and intensity it requires.

Liz Magill:

To ensure that our Jewish students have a direct channel to share their experiences with me, I’ve created a student advisory group on the student experience. Today’s hearing is focused on antisemitism and its direct impact on the Jewish community, but history teaches us that where antisemitism goes unchecked, other forms of hate spread, and ultimately can threaten democracy.

We are seeing a rise in our society in harassment, intimidation, and threats toward individuals based on their identity as Muslim, Palestinian, or Arab. At Penn, we are investigating all these allegations for members of our community and providing resources to support individuals experiencing threats, online harassment, and doxing.

We will continue to deploy all the necessary resources to support any member of the community experiencing hate. As president, I am committed to a safe, secure, and supportive educational environment so that our academic mission can thrive. It is crucial that ideas are exchanged and diverse viewpoints are debated.

 Sally Kornbluth:

I strongly believe that there is a difference — between what we can say to each other. That is what we have a right to say and what we should say as members of one community. Yet as president of MIT, in addition to my duties to keep the campus safe and to maintain the functioning of this national asset, I must at the same time ensure that we protect speech and viewpoint diversity for everyone.

This is in keeping with the Institute’s principles on free expression. Meeting those three goals is challenging and the results can be terribly uncomfortable, but it is essential to how we operate in the United States. Those who want us to shut down protest language are in effect arguing for a speech code.

But in practice, speech codes do not work. Problematic speech needs to be countered with other speech and with education. And we are doing that. However, the right to free speech does not extend to harassment, discrimination or incitement to violence in our community. MIT policies are clear on this. To keep the campus functioning, we also have policies to regulate the time, manner and place of demonstrations.

Then and Now: Part I

Several years ago when I commemorated the passing of Steve Jobs and his career that helped change the world, I contemplated my grandmother's life and many of the changes she experienced during the first nine decades of the twentieth century.

I focused on the earth-shattering innovations she witnessed, perhaps the most obvious being the fact that she was alive when the Wright Brothers made their first flight in 1903, but wouldn't have known about it for at least four years when mention of it finally was published in the newspapers. Sixty years later, she was still very much alive when we watched together as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, live on TV.

Now consider this: when my grandmother was born, much of the world was still under the dominion of a handful of imperial powers. In the year of her birth, Spain and Great Britain could both legitimately claim the sun never set upon their empires. It just so happened in that very year, 1898, Spain would lose its claim as the last remnants of its once vast empire, the Philippines and Cuba would be lost to them forever. 1898 continues to be a year of infamy to many Spaniards. In fact, "well it's not so bad, at least you didn't lose Cuba" is still a popular message of consolation in Spain.

After two world wars, the two-thousand-year-old world order of imperial domination would come to an end and national self-determination, or at least the desire for it, would take its place. We have a globe at home that was manufactured when my grandmother was in her forties. The names of regions printed on that globe, unrecognizable to those today with little concept of history attest to that fact, as does the omission of familiar place names such as Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan, Iraq, Russia, and of course, Israel.

I think it's fair to say the world my grandmother left in the 1980s was unrecognizable from the world she entered in the 1898. 

The world didn't change as drastically for me, although things are considerably different since I came on the scene in 1958.

I was reminded of this after watching a program called "Thank You Mr. President" which features excerpts from some of the sixty-five presidential news conferences conducted during the John F. Kennedy administration. 

That number alone attests to the changing times as Kennedy, in his nearly three years as president, participated in an average of 22.9 news conferences per year while the current president Joe Biden's number is less than half that, 11.3. Only Richard Nixon's and Ronald Reagan's number of annual press conferences, 7 and 5.8 respectively are lower for all the presidents since Calvin Coolidge.  

The "modern" news conference where a president meets in a formal setting with members of the press which is broadcast to the public live on television, began during the administration of Kennedy's predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower. But I think it's fair to say that Kennedy raised the event to an art form with his charm and quick wit, his wealth of historic and cultural knowledge, and his ability to think on his feet.  

However, Kennedy's job was made easier compared to that of his successors by the tacit limits placed upon the reporters. There is no question that the public's attitude toward the office of President of the United States, and especially to the person who holds that job has changed drastically in the past sixty years. Like all presidents, JFK had his detractors, but in his time, there was enough respect for the office to mean that certain questions were off limits. 

Today, after his tragic demise, Kennedy in some circles is best remembered for the many indiscretions in his personal life. These were not unknown by members of the press during his presidency, but publicly disclosing them would have meant professional suicide as the public did not have the voracious appetite we have today for salacious information on the private lives of public figures. More importantly, an indiscreet journalist would lose his or her most valuable asset, access to the president. 

That was no longer the case some thirty years later when at a presidential news conference, a CNN reporter asked then President George H.W. Bush flat out if he ever had an extramarital affair. By then, after the public disillusionment and cynicism surrounding the government's handling of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and numerous other issues, nothing was considered off limits anymore. Bush's indignant response to the question only fueled suspicions which may have played a part in his losing re-election in 1992 to Bill Clinton, himself no stranger to personal indiscretions. 

Attitudes about the office of POTUS barely scratch the surface of the differences between then and now as illustrated by the Kennedy news conferences. 

As one of the first prominent women journalists on the national scene including her stint as a World War II correspondent, May Craig was a true pioneer in the struggle for equal rights for women. You can read about Miss Craig here: 

In a time when the cause for women's rights was a back burner issue at best, Craig often found herself at odds with the most powerful men in the country including presidents, who while respecting her credentials, did their best to downplay her concerns. 

If you go to YouTube and type in "the wit of JFK", you will find dozens of videos featuring humorous responses from the 35th president during his 65 news conferences. Inevitably in each video there will be at least one appearance by May Craig addressing her concerns about women's issues, among others in the midst of a barrage of questions from male reporters about other "pressing" issues of the day such as nuclear weapons, the economy, the Cold War, segregation and Civil Rights.

Here's one of Miss Craig's questions verbatim, one that could easily be asked today:

The platform of the Democratic Party in which you ran promised to work for equal rights for women including equal pay to wipe out job opportunity discriminations. Now, you have made efforts on behalf of others, what have you done for the women according to the promises of the platform?

To which the president responded without missing a beat:

"Well, I'm sure we haven't done enough and uh..." 

That drew a roar of laughter from the predominantly male press corps. When the guffaws subsided, Kennedy assured Miss Craig that he was completely in favor of equal pay for equal work and that we ought to do better, adding sardonically: "..."and I'm glad you reminded me of it Miss Craig."

Which drew another round of laughter.

Imagine a male politician today with the exception of one, so blithely dismissing the rights of one half of the population.

As I said, times have changed, and not all for the worse.

Public officials in a democracy should be held accountable and taken to task by a vigilant press asking at times, difficult questions.

Up to a point that is. 

To be continued...