That won the award from Margie and Jackie who were watching some sort of interview or news conference the other day regarding City Reaction fo the Holiday Blizzard of 2006. “Does the city have enough snow plows?”
Well, yeah, duh, if the city bought ten thousand snow plows, and kept a full-time team of snow plow drivers on constant standby, 24×7, then maybe the streets could be kept clean, or cleaner, or be cleaned up faster.
Of course, it would take a million-zillion dollars, and nobody really wants that. They just want their street plowed. And the streets they may want to drive down. And they only really worry about it when, well, it’s snowing.
It’s a no-win question. If you’re a pol and answer, “Yes,” then we cut to snow-filled streets, little old ladies trying to shovel out their Hummers, and poor families evacuated from the interstate to a Red Cross shelter (“So, does Mayor Jones think these people would agree we have enough snow plows?”). Answer, “no,” and see yourself crucified in the editorial pages for the forseeable future (“Mayor Jones knew we didn’t have enough snow plows, and yet did nothing!”).
The only question is, was it simply a fiendishly cunning journalistic trap, or is it just a reporter being a doofus.
And in a slightly similar note, I was on CNN and some talking head was critiquing the Bush Administration for delays in announcing their New, Improved Iraq Policy (With More Whiteners and Brighteners! “I’ve never seen military policy being thrashed out with so much public discussion and looking into the process and taking this long,” the talking head critiqued.
Um … hasn’t the Bush Administration been (rightfully) criticized over the past six years for shooting from the hip, making decisions without debate or transparency, doing whatever they heck they please just as lickety-split as they can?
Of course, I’ve got next to no confidence that they will make the right (or least wrong) decision in this case, regardless of what they do. But it remains a sign of the perverse nature of punditry that no matter how they go about making their decision (rightly, wrongly, making it or not), someone will be there to find something to criticize.
Now I’m waiting for Bush to send more snow plows to Iraq …