What a bunch of whiners.
We behold this absurdly expansive array of pretenders presuming to seek the Republican presidential nomination.
They regularly lambaste the supposed weakness of President Barack Obama. They offer themselves as smarter and tougher. They say they’ll kick Putin’s tail, and those of ISIS, and the tails of hard-working immigrants and their children.
Yet they cry out that they couldn’t possibly cope with a cast of clowns from cable television network CNBC who asked questions varying from tough to goofy to offensive in a two-hour debate last week.
So representatives of 11 of the GOP presidential campaigns gathered in New York on Sunday evening to complain about mean and hard questions from the bad old media and to strategize on how to protect themselves with easier questions from nicer and more supportive people.
Dr. Ben Carson doesn’t want to be asked anymore about giving paid speeches and appearing in promotional videos for a nutritional supplement company called Mannatech that got fined in Texas — not exactly a consumer-rights refuge — for fraudulently marketing its products as cures for cancer and autism.
Challenged about his Mannatech connection last week, Carson simply denied any association and thus got found by PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-winning candidate-claim watchdog, to have mouthed a clear falsehood.
Carson’s representative at Sunday’s meeting suggested moving these debates from TV to Facebook and giving candidates more time to blabber with unchallenged promotional hooey amounting to free advertising.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has called for banning from GOP debate questioning anyone not a certified Republican.
I doubt he means that seriously. I doubt he means seriously a lot of what he says. But this issue offers a rhetoric windfall for him, and he is milking it.
That’s because the CNBC semi-debacle afforded him the best moment of his dreary campaign. He attacked the moderators directly for the accusatory tone of their questions and won loud plaudits and rave right-wing reviews that may actually have thrust him into real competition.
That’s the point, really. Even a semi-debacle of a debate can provide defining moments of relevant revelations about the candidates.
Confronted by an imperfect debate, this happened: Carson misrepresented. Trump huffed. Huckabee pouted. Rubio adapted. Bush cowered. Christie rallied. Cruz propelled himself into a top tier of consideration.
If you want to be president, you need to be able to deal with uncontrolled situations, which tend to arise over four years in the modern world.
So here’s what The New York Times reported to have come from the whine session Sunday:
• The campaigns themselves and not the Republican National Committee would negotiate formats. Later, the wild card Donald Trump said he’d negotiate only for himself. (Here’s a more reasonable idea: Let the RNC continue to coordinate formats and allow candidates who object to decline to participate.)
• All debates, after the next one on Fox Business, would allow the candidates at least 30 seconds each for opening and closing statements. (That’s 10 minutes wasted on pablum that none of us could ever get back.)
• Candidates would get prior approval of any graphics to be shown about them when they are speaking. Jeb Bush was upset that CNBC displayed a graphic reporting that he had been a banker. (Here’s a better idea: If you don’t want to be called a banker, don’t ever go to work as a paid adviser for Barclay’s.)
• There would be no “lightning rounds” of rat-a-tat questions and instant short answers. (Because running for president should be easier than Jeopardy.)
• There would be “parity and integrity” in that candidates would be asked an equal number of equally substantive questions. (Alas, that is impossibly subjective and probably means nothing more than that Huckabee will get as many chances to offer scatological metaphors as Bush will get to brag on his fantasy football team’s record.)
None of that is to argue that CNBC’s questioners were anything other than awful, beginning with the first question, which asked the candidates to attack themselves by owning up to their greatest flaws.
Did anyone really think that:
• Ben Carson would say he doesn’t understand issues?
• Donald Trump would say he is a superficial celebrity with an ego disorder?
• Marco Rubio would say he is too inexperienced?
• Jeb Bush would say he is incurably boring?
• Ted Cruz would say he is smarmy?
• Mike Huckabee would say he’s a blowhard?
• Carly Fiorina would say she couldn’t run a business?
• Chris Christie would say he’s mean and vindictive?
• Rand Paul would say he is too angry to acknowledge reason?
• John Kasich would say he’s entirely too credible and reasonable to compete seriously for the Republican presidential nomination?
No, you need the media for that kind of truth.
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.