Monday, March 10, 2008

Evasion: "No Hypothetical Questions"

Politicians often avoid answering questions on the grounds that they "don't answer hypothetical questions."

For instance:
Question: "If this bill comes up for a vote, will you vote for it or against it?"
Answer: "The bill hasn't come up for a vote, and I'm not going to answer hypothetical questions. When and if the bill comes up for a vote, I'll deal with it then."
But this is an evasion, because we routinely face -- and answer -- hypothetical questions all the time. What will we do if the car breaks down? If we're late for dinner? If we're too sick to go to work? These are all examples of hypothetical questions, and there's nothing, in principle, keeping us from answering them.

Now, sometimes a hypothetical question has too many missing details that we need to know in order to give an answer. In that case, it's reasonable to refuse to answer it until more specifics are given (and we should state what details we need more information on in order to answer the question).

But to refuse outright to answer any hypothetical question whatsoever is a baseless evasion.

When confronted with such an evasion, one good response is to say:
"So, if I ask you another hypothetical question, you won't answer it?"
This question is, itself, a hypothetical one. So, if they answer it in any way at all -- with a yes or a no -- they've undermined their rationale for not answering the first question.


EXAMPLES AND ANALYSIS
CHARLIE SYKES: When you start asking your guy these questions about policy, there's no "there" there. I know you want to talk about policy. Donald Trump hasn't spent thirty seconds thinking about abortion before he was asked by Chris Matthews.

ANN COULTER: No, I think that's crazy. I thought the full exchange was fabulous. It was a stupid hypothetical question that has absolutely no bearing on what a president does. It is like asking a president: If you were a tree, what tree would you be?
-- Pundit Ann Coulter, posted April 5, 2016, during interview with talk radio host Charlie Sykes. The two were referring to a question faced by Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, in which he was asked whether women who had abortions should be punished if abortion were ever made illegal.

Comment: First, "crazy" is "stupid" rhetoric. Second, Coulter is objecting to the hypothetical question that Trump was asked, though there's nothing out of bounds about the question, even if it is unlikely that abortion will be made illegal.

***
DICKERSON: There's been a lot of commentary this week that this has been the worst week in your campaign. A lot of people want to stop you. Are they succeeding?

TRUMP: I don't know that it's been the worst week in my campaign. I think I have had many bad weeks, and I have had many good weeks. I don't see this as worst week in my campaign. But, certainly, I've had some weeks, and you've been reporting on them, where "that was the end," and then the next week you see poll numbers where they went up and everybody's shocked. So, yeah, people want to stop me because I'm leading by a lot. The new polls that came out had me leading by just about more than ever. NBC had a very good national poll that just came out. I guess I'm leading very big in New York and Pennsylvania.

DICKERSON: Let me ask you a question about abortion. What would you do to further restrict women's access to abortions as president?

TRUMP: Well, look, look, I just -- I mean, I know where you're going, and I just want to say -- a question was asked to me, and it was asked in a very hypothetical -- and it was said, "Illegal, illegal." I've been told by some people that was a older line answer, and that was an answer that was given on a, you know, basis of an older line from years ago, very-- on a very conservative basis. But --

DICKERSON: Your original answer, you mean.

TRUMP: My original --

DICKERSON: Punishing the woman.

TRUMP: But I was asked as a hypothetical, hypothetically, hypothetically. The laws are set now on abortion, and that's the way they're going to remain until they're changed.

DICKERSON: Because you had said you wanted -- you told Bloomberg in January that you believed abortion should be banned at some point in pregnancy. Where would you --

TRUMP: Well l first of all, I would have liked to have seen, you know, this be a states' rights, I would have preferred states' rights. I think it would have been better if it were up to the states. But right now, the laws are set, and that's the way the laws are.

DICKERSON: But do you have a feeling how they should change? There are a lot of laws you want to change, you've talked about them from libel to torture, anything you'd want to change on abortion?

TRUMP: At this moment, the laws are set and I think he we have to leave it that way.

DICKERSON: Do you think it's murder, abortion?

TRUMP: I have my opinions on it, but I would rather not comment on it.

DICKERSON: You said you were very pro-life, pro-life views that abortion is murder.

TRUMP: Yeah, but I do have my opinions on it, but I'd rather -- I just don't think it's an appropriate forum.

DICKERSON: But you don't disagree that proposition, that it's murder?

TRUMP: What proposition?

DICKERSON: That abortion is murder.

TRUMP: No, I don't disagree with it.
-- Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, April 3, 2016, during interview with John Dickerson of CBS News. The two were discussing a question faced by Trump, in which he was asked whether women who had abortions should be punished if abortion were ever made illegal.

Comment: Trump is evading questions on the basis of their being hypothetical or that the interview is "not an appropriate forum" (how is a political news program not an appropriate forum to discuss political positions?). Plus, by saying that the laws on abortion are "set", Trump seems to be saying that debating abortion is rehashing old issues.

***
RITTIMAN: I want to turn more to the race, generally, here. I know he's got his own decision to make here, Joe Biden, does, but in your heart of hearts, you have to be hoping he doesn't get into this race at this point.

CLINTON: I'm not hoping anything about that, I really respect and admire the Vice President, he's been a friend and a colleague of mine for a long time. He has to make up his own mind. And what I know is I have to run may campaign no matter who else is in the race, and so I'm just gonna give him the space that he needs to try to resolve this in his own mind.

RITTIMAN: You feel you're ready to run against him if he were to decide to get in?

CLINTON: I'm not gonna comment on a decision that he hasn't made. I feel like I have a lot to put forward before the American and that's what I intend to do and I will continue to do that.
-- Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, October 14, 2015, during interview with Brandon Rittiman of KUSA 9News.

Comment: This is an evasion of the "hypothetical" sort. Clinton never answers whether she is ready to run against Biden, or whether she wants Biden to get in the race.

***
KROFT: Do you think if you ran again, could run again, and did run again, you would be elected?

OBAMA: Yes.

KROFT: You do.

OBAMA: I do.
-- President Barack Obama, during interview released October 11, 2015, with Steve Kroft of CBS News.

Comment: Obama is answering a hypothetical question.

***
GUTHRIE: [Reading question] Hypothetically speaking, would you consider a vice president position?

CLINTON: Hypothetically speaking, no.
-- Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, October 5, 2015, during town hall event hosted by Savannah Guthrie of NBC News.

Comment: Clinton is answering a hypothetical question.

***
GUTHRIE: You mentioned your Republican rivals making hay of this.

CLINTON: Right.

GUTHRIE: I have to ask you, if the tables were turned and it was Dick Cheney or Karl Rove who had a private e-mail account and a private server on which they conducted all their government business, would you be as understanding?

CLINTON: I would never have done that. Look at the situation they chose to exploit to go after me for political reasons, the death of four Americans in Benghazi. I knew the ambassador. I identified him. I asked him to go there. I asked the President to nominate him. There have been seven investigations led mostly by Republicans in the Congress, and they were non-partisan and they reached conclusions that, first of all, I and nobody did anything wrong, but there were changes we could make. This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans. I would have never done that, and if I were president and there were Republicans or Democrats who were thinking about that, I would have done everything to shut it down.
-- Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, October 5, 2015, during town hall event hosted by Savannah Guthrie of NBC News.

Comment: First, notice that Clinton is answering a hypothetical question. Second, she is accusing Republicans of being partisan and exploiting the attack in Benghazi. She is doing this on the basis of remarks by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), on September 29, 2015. But, just because McCarthy says the investigation had a certain motive doesn't mean everyone else supporting the investigation had that same motive. More, just because there are sinister reasons for a certain course of action (e.g., investigating Clinton) doesn't mean there are no legitimate reasons for performing the same action; to suggest otherwise (as Clinton seems to be doing) is ad hominem reasoning.

***
HARWOOOD: So do people misunderstand you're actually not for ending birthright citizenship?

WALKER: I'm not taking a position on it one way or the other. I'm saying that until you secure the border and enforce the laws, any discussion about anything else is really looking past the very things we have to do.
-- Repubilcan presidential candidate Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), from an interview released August 21, 2015, with CNBC’s John Harwood.

Comment: This seems like an evasion. Why can't Walker take a position on whether birthright citizenship should be continued or stopped? Other candidates have taken a position on the issue, either saying, for instance, that ending birthright citizenship would end an incentive for illegal immigration and thus help secure the border, or saying that birthright citizenship should be kept in place regardless of other changes to our immigration policy. It's not clear why Walker can't do the same. Is he saying the issue is a distraction, or involves too many hypotheticals?

***

Examples from 2014.

***
SCHIEFFER: What if -- what if the prime minister of Israel called you on the phone and said: Our bombers are on the way. We're going to bomb Iran. What do you say?

ROMNEY: Bob, let's not go into hypotheticals of that nature. Our relationship with Israel, my relationship with the prime minister of Israel is such that we would not get a call saying our bombers are on the way or their fighters are on the way. This is the kind of thing that would have been discussed and thoroughly evaluated well before that kind of action.
-- Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), October 22, 2012, during the third presidential debate in Boca Raton, FL, between Romney and President Barack Obama.

Comment: Romney is refusing to answer a hypothetical question, here. However, he gives a reason why: because the premise of the hypothetical -- that Israel would send bombers to Iran and then alert the United States after the fact, not beforehand -- is implausible. We could argue about whether it really is implausible, but I don't think this is an unfair evasion. Romney wasn't rejecting all hypothetical questions, he gave a plausible reason for rejecting a particular hypothetical.

***
RUSSERT: I want to ask both of you this question, then. If we -- if this scenario plays out and the Americans get out in total and al Qaeda resurges and Iraq goes to hell, do you hold the right, in your mind as American president, to re-invade, to go back into Iraq to stabilize it?

CLINTON: You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals. And I believe that what's --

RUSSERT: But this is reality.

CLINTON: No -- well, it isn't reality. You're -- you're -- you're making lots of different hypothetical assessments.
-- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), February 26, 2008, at the Democratic Debate in Cleveland moderated by Tim Russert of NBC News.

Comment: Clinton is refusing to answer a hypothetical question.

***
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, in 1981 the Israelis took out a nuclear reactor in Iraq. On September 6th, to the best of our information, Israel attacked Syria because there was suspicion that perhaps North Korea had put some nuclear materials in Syria. If Israel concluded that Iran's nuclear capability threatened Israel's security, would Israel be justified in launching an attack on Iran?

CLINTON: Tim, I think that's one of those hypotheticals that --

RUSSERT: It is not a hypothetical, Senator. It's real life.

CLINTON: -- that is better not addressed at this time.
-- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), September 26, 2007, at the Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC moderated by Tim Russert of NBC News.

Comment: Clinton is refusing to answer a hypothetical question.

***
RUSSERT: Imagine the following scenario. We get lucky. We get the number three guy in Al Qaida. We know there's a big bomb going off in America in three days and we know this guy knows where it is. Don't we have the right and responsibility to beat it out of him? You could set up a law where the president could make a finding or could guarantee a pardon. President [sic] Obama -- would you do that as president?

OBAMA: America cannot sanction torture. It's a very straightforward principle, and one that we should abide by. Now, I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. And there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals and emergency situations and I will make that judgment at that time. But what we cannot do is have the president of the United States state, as a matter of policy, that there is a loophole or an exception where we would sanction torture. I think that diminishes us and it sends the wrong message to the world.

RUSSERT: Senator Biden, would you allow this presidential exception?

BIDEN: No, I would not.



RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, this is the number three man in Al Qaida. We know there's a bomb about to go off, and we have three days, and we know this guy knows where it is. Should there be a presidential exception to allow torture in that kind of situation?

CLINTON: You know, Tim, I agree with what Joe and Barack have said. As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy period.
-- Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), September 26, 2007, at the Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC moderated by Tim Russert of NBC News.

Comment: Obama, Biden, and Clinton are answering a hypothetical question.

***
BLITZER: Raise your hand if you agree with Senator Biden that the United States should use military force to stop the genocide in Darfur.



CLINTON: Well, but, we're not going to engage in these hypotheticals. I mean, one of the jobs of a president is being very reasoned in approaching these issues. And I don't think it's useful to be talking in these kind of abstract, hypothetical terms.
-- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), June 3, 2007, at the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate moderated by Wolf Blitzer of CNN.

Comment: Clinton is refusing to answer a hypothetical question.

***
CLINTON: We still have to make it clear that Iran having a nuclear weapon is absolutely unacceptable. We have to try to prevent that at all costs. But we need to start with diplomacy in order to see what we can accomplish.

BLITZER: So what happens, Senator, if diplomacy, when all is said and done, fails?

CLINTON: Wolf, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals, because we've had an administration that doesn't believe in diplomacy.
-- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), June 3, 2007, at the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate moderated by Wolf Blitzer of CNN.

Comment: Clinton is refusing to answer a hypothetical question.

***
BLITZER: I want everybody to raise their hand and tell me: If you agree that if the U.S. had intelligence that could take out Osama bin Laden and kill him, even though some innocent civilians would die in the process, would you, as president, authorize such an operation? If you would, raise your hand.

BIDEN: It would depend on how many innocent civilians...

CLINTON: Yes, I mean, part of this is one of these hypotheticals, Wolf...

EDWARDS: There's not information, not enough information.

CLINTON: ... that is very difficult to answer in the abstract.
-- Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), June 3, 2007, at the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate moderated by Wolf Blitzer of CNN.

Comment: Biden, Clinton, and Edwards are refusing to answer a hypothetical question.


(The list above is not intended to be a comprehensive record of all relevant examples.)

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