I'm on a crusade to get reporters to ask political candidates one simple follow-up question whenever they make ridiculous, or even just questionable, claims: "Can you tell us exactly what you're talking about?" It's a way of holding them accountable for what they say, and revealing whether they have any depth to the things they profess to believe. The answers, if reporters ever bothered to ask the question, would be very revealing.
In today's installment, we have a meeting of the minds on climate change, as Tim Pawlenty and the comically vapid Fox News anchordolls Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade get into the "science":
PAWLENTY: I denounced it [his prior position in support of cap and trade] for a variety of reasons, one of which is the science is bad and it's in great dispute.
KILMEADE: Do you think there is no such thing as global warming? Do you think that's trumped up by people who want to get on the green agenda?
PAWLENTY: I'm old enough to remember when people were predicting there was going to be the next ice age. Until recently people were worried as much about global cooling. There is climate change but the reality is the science indicates most of it, if not all of it, is caused by natural causes. And as to the potential human contribution to that, there's a great scientific dispute about that very issue.
DOOCY: You're exactly right.
If Pawlenty is going to make proclamations about "the science," then he ought to be asked what he's talking about. It happens that he's either misinformed or lying about what scientists have actually found about climate change. That being the case, he should be asked something like the following: "Governor, you have said that the science indicates that most, if not all of climate change is caused by natural causes. This is not what virtually all actual climate scientists have found in their research, nor what groups like the National Academy of Science have stated unequivocally. You obviously believe they are mistaken. Can you explain exactly why these scientists and scientific organizations are wrong, and how you came to a different conclusion?"
Asking a question like that isn't about playing "gotcha." It's not demanding that a candidate name the foreign minister of Uzbekistan, or his favorite bible verse. It means insisting that they provide some evidence or rationale to support the positions that they take. As long as candidates know they won't have to actually offer evidence to support their nutty stances or wild claims, they'll continue to take nutty stances and make wild claims. And the more the claim they're making is unexpected or counter-intuitive or runs against what most people who understand the issue think, the greater the burden ought to be to explain themselves.
Too many reporters think being "tough" means accusing candidates of hypocrisy, or asking them idiotic, easy-to-dodge questions like "Are you a flake?", or asking trailing candidates, "Why aren't you connecting?" That's not tough. Being tough is demanding that on matters of substance, candidates do what any high school student writing a paper is asked to do: explain how you came to the conclusion you did, back up your claims, and show your work. It isn't too much to ask of people who want to be president.
