March 3^rd

Mona Charen’s column is titled, “Questions the press doesn’t ask Democrats.” Unfortunately for Mona this column comes just as the press is hot on the current awfulness of Hillary Clinton who, as Secretary of State, used her private email account to communicate with various people. I’m sure this will be a major issue for Fox News. (She had no government provided email account.)

Charen begins with a harangue about Scott Walker who sat without responding when Giuliani assured us that President Obama did not love his country. She snarkily asked if Walker was expected to grab Giuliani by the scruff of the neck and escort him off the stage. No, but he could have done what Senator McCain did in similar circumstances when a woman at one of his gatherings claimed Obama was an Arab and frightened her. McCain took the microphone and said, “No, he is a decent family man with whom I have some fundamental political disagreements.” Walker couldn’t imagine doing anything like that with Giuliani’s comment; Mona can’t imagine him doing it either, nor can I.

Then Mona asks why the press responded so forcefully to Giuliani’s assertion that Obama doesn’t love his country while ignoring Obama’s remark about Bush being “unpatriotic.” The reasoning behind Giuliani’s accusation, so he claimed, was based on “the way he was brought up.” (Later, after the firestorm started he gave other reasons.) In contrast, Obama’s comment about Bush was based on the fact that, at the end of his two terms, he left his country with two trillion dollars of debt! Charen leaves out that part but I would guess that many fiscal conservatives would agree with the reason for Obama’s characterization of Bush.

She is worried about “the participation of left-leaning journalists in Republican debates” and claims to have her own list of “journalists who will be fair.” I wonder if any of her “journalists who will be fair” work for fair and balanced Fox News? It’s too bad she won’t give us any names on this list of neutrals. Maybe she knows that on close examination they aren’t all that neutral!

Then we have a list of questions to ask of Democrats:  “How many immigrants should we welcome every year? As many as can get here? …presents any problem for unskilled Americans who are having trouble finding work.”  That is a hopelessly naïve question. Mona apparently believes all immigrants will come looking for unskilled jobs displacing unskilled American workers. At the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital fully a third of the physicians are immigrants. In a few years we will be short 45 thousand physicians. Simply restricting the total number of immigrants is not the answer. Revising immigration laws is a complex issue and well beyond the simple–minded gotcha types of questions suggested by Mona Charen.  Her other suggestions for questions are equally naïve.