I don’t have the transcript of David Gregory’s interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R.-Min), Queen of the Tea Party, on “Meet the Press,” but it went something like this:
Gregory: Do you think the government should be shut down unless the President agrees to more budge cuts?
Bachmann: I think the fielding of Don Hoak at third base for the 1960 Pirates was truly outstanding, and definitely a key to the team’s success. Baby bok choy is delicious.
Gregory: Let me play you a clip of your recent comments. Do you really believe that the President is trying to jeopardize the economy?
Bachmann: Most people think Anchorage is the capital of Alaska, but it’s really Juneau. And, of course, Anne Boleyn had three breasts.
Gregory: I’m asking a direct question…do you really believe that the President has anti-American motives?
Bachmann: I’m now going to recite everything Barack Obama has done wrong from the second grade to the present, and in pig-latin, just for the fun of it….
Okay, I’m a little sketchy on the details. But Bachmann basically refused to answer any of Gregory’s completely clear and respectful questions, electing instead to repeat canned talking points, evade his queries, and in general say whatever she wanted regardless of whether it had any connection to what Gregory wanted to know or not.
Whether you are a Bachmann admirer or one who, like Daily Beast writer John Avlon (who is a leader of “No-Labels” and never, ever engages in incivility or name-calling) calls Bachmann a “wingnut”, we should be able to agree on this: her conduct is unethical and unacceptable.
She was invited to appear on “Meet the Press.” She was a guest. Her obligation was to make a good faith effort to answer the host’s questions as long as they were polite and relevant ti her appearance. They were. What Bachmann did was rude, evasive, intellectually dishonest and insulting to both Gregory and his audience.
Nobody should tolerate this behavior, from Bachmann or anyone else, for she is hardly alone. An elected official who can’t or won’t answer a direct question is untrustworthy as well as infuriating. Her Minnesota constituency and her Tea Party admirers should tell her in clear terms to cut it out, or else. No radio or TV host should invite her to be a guest as long as she pulls this stunt on any of them, regardless of their perceived political orientation. If she had been in court, she would have been held in contempt. If it was a job interview, she would have been shown the door.
I would applaud if Gregory and any other host confronted with such appalling rudeness simply cut such interviews short, saying, “I’m sorry, Congresswoman, but if you won’t give me the courtesy of an honest answer to these questions, this interview is over. Good-bye.”
Oh yes: Bachmann also owes Gregory an apology.
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Update: A transcript is now available. (I guess I misheard that part about Don Hoak.) Here is the actual exchange between Gregory and Bachmann:
MR. GREGORY: We are back, joined now by the head of the tea party caucus in the House of Representatives, Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota Michele Bachmann. Welcome to MEET THE PRESS.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): Thank you, David.
MR. GREGORY: Nice to have you. You heard the chief of staff, Bill Daley, say that he’s optimistic that it’s possible to avert a government shutdown. Are you as optimistic as he is?
REP. BACHMANN: Well, I’m hopeful. I don’t think anyone wants to see the government shut down, but it is shocking the revelations of all the money that’s been spent. There was a Congressional Research Service report that just was issued in February, and we discovered that secretly, unbeknownst to members of Congress, over $105 billion was hidden in the Obamacare legislation to fund the implementation of Obamacare. This is something that wasn’t known. This money was broken up, hidden in various parts of the bills. And we have worked very hard to discover $61 billion in cuts that we could put forward, get to the president. So, in effect, David, we’ve taken one step forward and two steps back because we’ve found now that $105 billion had already been implemented.
MR. GREGORY: All right. But that–but, Congresswoman, you heard the president this week offer…
REP. BACHMANN: Or appropriated.
MR. GREGORY: …an accommodation to the states to opt out of the individual mandate, where necessary, to tailor it toward their own states.
REP. BACHMANN: Well, David…
MR. GREGORY: Why isn’t that the sort of–the give that Republicans wanted?
REP. BACHMANN: David, that’s not a give at all. In effect, all that is, is a pretext for implementing a single-payer plan. If you–if you recall, the president’s entire statement, he said the states can opt out as long as they stay within the, the requirements of all of Obamacare unless they want to go with a single payer–again, from the very beginning it has been said that Obamacare is a crime against democracy. It has been a deception from the beginning. Remember, the president told us it was a mandate, not a tax. Now in the federal court he’s arguing it’s a tax, not a Band-Aid.
MR. GREGORY: Will you–I want to stick with the…
REP. BACHMANN: We were also told that our premiums would go down $2,500 and instead, they’re spiking up by 20 and 40 percent.
MR. GREGORY: Let me get in here, Congresswoman.
REP. BACHMANN: This has been a fraud.
MR. GREGORY: Let me get in here. I want to stick with the, the narrow budget questions. Are you willing to vote to shut down the government over some of these add-ons to these spending bills, to defund funding for the healthcare legislation, for Planned Parenthood, for the EPA?
REP. BACHMANN: I think this deception that the president and Pelosi and Reid put forward with, with appropriating over $105 billion needs to be given back to the people. There was no debate. There was no discussion. $105 billion is a lot of money. You can’t just slip that into a bill and not tell members of the House and not tell members of the Senate, and then when they go to vote for the bill, did it just slip Harry Reid’s mind to not tell the senators that this was in the bill?
MR. GREGORY: Congresswoman, my question is a very, is a very direct one: Will you vote to shut down the government over those riders?
REP. BACHMANN: I think that President Obama needs to give back that $105 billion that they already appropriated. They have tied the hands of Congress for the next eight years, David. They already appropriated this money. Members of Congress didn’t even know this money was in the bill because we couldn’t read the bill before it was passed because it wasn’t given to us but hours before we had to vote for it. That’s why Speaker Pelosi famously said we have to pass the bill to know what’s in it. Members of Congress weren’t even given the courtesy of time to read the bill. This $105 billion has to be given back before we can start any other discussions.
MR. GREGORY: Let me ask, let me ask you about some tea party criticism of Speaker Boehner over how far the cuts have gone. The USA Today reported on this on Friday, I’ll put it up. “Tea Party leader blasts Boehner over cuts. The founder of one of the largest Tea Party groups said House Speaker Boehner looks like a `fool’ … because he has not cut enough from the budget.
“Judson Phillips … [the] founder of the Tea Party Nation, Boehner’s inability to negotiate,” he said, “larger cuts should prompt the Tea Party movement to run a candidate against [him] in 2012 in a GOP primary. “`The Tea Party movement sprang up in ’09 as a reaction to insane government spending,’ Phillips wrote on his blog on Wednesday. `In 2010, the American people spoke, demanding change. Everyone realizes that the level of spending cannot be sustained. John Boehner did not get that message.'”
Has Boehner failed the tea party?
REP. BACHMANN: The main message that’s going across the Internet today among members of the tea party, they are outraged about this $105 billion that was deceptively put in the Obamacare bill.
MR. GREGORY: Congresswoman, you’ve made, you’ve made your point.
REP. BACHMANN: That’s what they’re focused on.
MR. GREGORY: I’m asking you a direct question here about whether you think, as head of the tea party caucus, whether Boehner has failed to live up to the tea party’s expectations.
REP. BACHMANN: I think what we’re–we–what we’re trying to do as Republicans in the House is look for every place we possibly can to cut spending. We’ve identified $100 billion in cuts off of the president’s proposed budget, $60 billion if you compare it to the 2010 budget. So we have done our part to look for cuts. But we can’t be–we can’t end there. We have to also demand that we claw back the $105 billion that was deceptively already appropriated by President Obama.
MR. GREGORY: The, the speaker has said that it would be irresponsible not to raise the debt limit, as will be called for soon. Will you agree with him on that and do that?
REP. BACHMANN: I am not in favor of raising the debt ceiling. In the last 10 years we have raised the debt ceiling 10 times. We are just giving the Congress a license to keep on spending. And one thing the American people are demanding because they want to see jobs created, they want to see the economy get on a back–good footing. In order to do that, government has to take less so that the American people can keep more.
MR. GREGORY: The issue of the tea party and backlash among voters against the tea party is an interesting area because conservatives and certainly leaders and tea party folks have said, “Look, there was a mandate from the 2010 election, and that was to cut spending.” And yet, you have this from–analysis from our Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, written by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday: “Among those most fearing spending cuts,” they reported, “were younger voters, independents, seniors, and suburban women–groups that include many swing voters in national elections, who potentially could turn against the GOP.
“`It may be hard to understand why someone would try to jump off a cliff’ to solve the debt crisis, [pollster] Mr. [Bill] McInturff said of his fellow Republicans, `unless you understand that they are being chased by a tiger, and that tiger is the tea party.'”
Is the tea party chasing the broader GOP off the cliff?
REP. BACHMANN: You know, I think that the political left has been very afraid of the tea party movement because it is not necessarily political. It’s not Democrats or Republicans. It’s made up of a very broad-based coalition. It’s made up of people who want the country to work again. They believe that we’re taxed enough already, the government shouldn’t spend more money than what its taking in, and that each of the three branches of government should act within the jurisdictional limitations of the Constitution. That’s a broad-based group of people. They just want our country to work again. And I think that that coalition is hanging together more strongly now than ever.
Ethics Alarms 
I agree with your premise that politicians should answer questions directly and honestly. But the way you describe the Bachmann interview (I didn’t see it) is clearly the rule not the exception, so why do you single her out? I’m not claiming everybody does it so that makes it ok, instead I am curious why your post didn’t convey a broader admonition.
Kurt: I thought the following section was pretty clearly general, though using Michele as the departure point…no?
“Nobody should tolerate this behavior, from Bachmann or anyone else, for she is hardly alone. An elected official who can’t or won’t answer a direct question is untrustworthy as well as infuriating. Her Minnesota constituency and her Tea Party admirers should tell her in clear terms to cut it out, or else. No radio or TV host should invite her to be a guest as long as she pulls this stunt on any of them, regardless of their perceived political orientation. If she had been in court, she would have been held in contempt. If it was a job interview, she would have been shown the door.”
“I would applaud if Gregory and any other host confronted with such appalling rudeness simply cut such interviews short, saying, “I’m sorry, Congresswoman, but if you won’t give me the courtesy of an honest answer to these questions, this interview is over. Good-bye.”
I wtch these shows every week. Bachmann’s display was especially egregious..she didn’t even pretend to answer the questions asked, for the most part, and Gregory was, justifiably, getting annoyed. It’s appropriate to have an example of the phenomenon, and I caught hers. The fact that others are guilty of the same of even worse doesn’t make her conduct less objectionable.
Jack, apologies, but one addendum to my comment. I am not a huge fan of Bachmann, but I find it a bit odd you use her as an example, without pointing out the disgraceful treatment she received at the hands of Gregory’s network on election night last November. Specifically Chris Matthews calling her a zombie and the other clowns giggling at her. Yes, two wrongs don’t make a right and all that good stuff, but I find MSNBC’s prior behavior towards her a mitigating factor. The host, MSNBC, treated their invited guest with rudeness and hostility. I find that to be a worse ethics violation than her evasive answers to that same host.
Why do you find MSNBC’s conduct (yes, I saw it; it was disgraceful and unfair, also lousy, biased, fake journalism) a justification for mistreating David Gregory and the NBC audience? How can that be mitigating? Rude is rude, evasive is evasive. “They were disrespectful of me on election night, so I should be disrespectful of “Meet the Press” in March? If Bachmann reasons like that, she really IS a wingnut.
Seems to me that Gregory wanted to entrap her into a sensationalistic topic about whether she would vote to shutdown government. Before answering, one ought to be given the leeway to discuss the enormity of the problem, and the enormity of the deception about the hidden $105 in appropriations that has led to the budget crisis that might cause Tea Party legislators to vote a certain way. It’s called setting the stage, the background against which any such decision might be taken. Seems to me that Gregory just wanted a yes or no, then to pursue the lines of “don’t you think that will ruin the country?” etc, which takes an audience’s attention away from the very budget-busting, apparently sneaky budget allocations that are the basis for the REAL crisis in government. So, hurray Ms. Bachman, for not rolling over to the sneaky journalistic agenda of showing her up to be an obstructionist for obstructionists’ sake alone. She DID answer questions about whether Mr. Boehner is living up to expectations (with a limited amount of reading between the lines required), and about the debt ceiling (quite directly). So, no, DON’T answer the questions if they are deceptive, with a hidden agenda to create a false impression. Of course, if you were a prosecuting counsel, you’d find it frustrating that someone would do that, wouldn’t you?
What’s a deceptive question?
MR. GREGORY: You heard the chief of staff, Bill Daley, say that he’s optimistic that it’s possible to avert a government shutdown. Are you as optimistic as he is?
MR. GREGORY: All right. But that–but, Congresswoman, you heard the president this week offer…
MR. GREGORY: …an accommodation to the states to opt out of the individual mandate, where necessary, to tailor it toward their own states. Why isn’t that the sort of–the give that Republicans wanted?
MR. GREGORY: Let me get in here. I want to stick with the, the narrow budget questions. Are you willing to vote to shut down the government over some of these add-ons to these spending bills, to defund funding for the healthcare legislation, for Planned Parenthood, for the EPA?
MR. GREGORY: Congresswoman, my question is a very, is a very direct one: Will you vote to shut down the government over those riders?
MR. GREGORY: Let me ask, let me ask you about some tea party criticism of Speaker Boehner over how far the cuts have gone. The USA Today reported on this on Friday, I’ll put it up. “Tea Party leader blasts Boehner over cuts. The founder of one of the largest Tea Party groups said House Speaker Boehner looks like a `fool’ … because he has not cut enough from the budget.
“Judson Phillips … [the] founder of the Tea Party Nation, Boehner’s inability to negotiate,” he said, “larger cuts should prompt the Tea Party movement to run a candidate against [him] in 2012 in a GOP primary. `The Tea Party movement sprang up in ’09 as a reaction to insane government spending,’ Phillips wrote on his blog on Wednesday. `In 2010, the American people spoke, demanding change. Everyone realizes that the level of spending cannot be sustained. John Boehner did not get that message.'” Has Boehner failed the tea party?
MR. GREGORY: I’m asking you a direct question here about whether you think, as head of the tea party caucus, whether Boehner has failed to live up to the tea party’s expectations.
MR. GREGORY: The, the speaker has said that it would be irresponsible not to raise the debt limit, as will be called for soon. Will you agree with him on that and do that?
MR. GREGORY: The issue of the tea party and backlash among voters against the tea party is an interesting area because conservatives and certainly leaders and tea party folks have said, “Look, there was a mandate from the 2010 election, and that was to cut spending.” And yet, you have this from–analysis from our Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, written by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday: “Among those most fearing spending cuts,” they reported, “were younger voters, independents, seniors, and suburban women–groups that include many swing voters in national elections, who potentially could turn against the GOP.
“`It may be hard to understand why someone would try to jump off a cliff’ to solve the debt crisis, [pollster] Mr. [Bill] McInturff said of his fellow Republicans, `unless you understand that they are being chased by a tiger, and that tiger is the tea party.'” Is the tea party chasing the broader GOP off the cliff?
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Peter, I see none of these as biased, traps or unfair. I would have preferred to know her answer rather than have her repeat the talking points over and over. It’s simple: if you won’t play ball with the interviewer, don’t agree to do the interview.
This is why I really do not watch news programs or interviews much anymore.
The interviewer tries to formulate questions to get the answers they want and the politician tries to ignore the question and get out what they want to say.
It’s just a big mess.
Did you see Megyn Kelly interviewing Anthony Wiener(D-NY)? Wiener was so completely rude and belligerent the man should have been slapped with a rotten fish.
Yes. Wiener was outrageous. Kelly has an agenda, but her questions were fair.
The reason Ms. Bachman had to keep driving on the subject was because Mr. Gregory refused to acknowledge its relevance to the question he asked. How can one ignore $100 billion in deceptively introduced spending? I mean, how can you just blow by that, just because it didn’t fit your agenda? The purpose of an interview, I thought, was to establish some “dialogue,” not, “I ask you the questions which establish a slanted viewpoint I want to show you with, especially if you don’t answer them right away.” She DID answer the question about the opting out for individual states by correctly pointing out that it was an attempt an end run to a “single payer” system, which again, is not what Gregory wanted to hear. As I pointed out, she DID answer the question about whether Boehner failed the Tea Party as transparently as she could without incurring the wrath of her own party’s leader. Being any more direct than this would have been a direct threat to her own standing within the Republican party, but again, the hidden agenda by Gregory was to start a fight within the party between Boehner and herself. Why is this not obvious?
And about “not playing ball,” sure, fine, agree to the interview, but when the pitcher starts throwing spitballs and other illegal pitches, it’s time to call the umpire and explain what you see is REALLY going on.
All I can say is that I am no Gregory fan, and I was throwing things at the TV screen. I thought Bachmann was outrageously evasive, and showed herself to be pretty witless to boot. It isn’t that hard to answer questions carefully—ducking them so transparently makes you look like a fool who can’t operate without a script—it reminded me of Gary Condit.
The link you provided to the Newsbusters site was illuminating. After watching the video it is hard to see why they did defend her, though I am hardly surprised. In politics ethics do not matter as much issues it seems.
The smooth fielding baseball player she referred to was not Hoak but Doug Mientkiewicz. Considering his World Series actions with the Sox, I am sure you have an opinion or two on him as well. 😉
Funny you should mention Doug: http://ethicsscoreboard.com/list/mientkiewicz.htm
I know—Newsbusters betrayed its biases there.
Obama and every politician I’ve ever seen (with rare exceptions) uses interviews to espouse their views, not answer questions. It is rampant, provides no information to the public, and should be condemned.
I think you chose Bachman because she is the most recent, and certainly most egregious, example. I DON’T think you were picking on her… just using her as an example of what goes on every day, and the wimpy interviewers who are afraid of negative feedback if they press too hard.
Personally, I think “Meet the Press” has had its day. Call it “Forum for Views” and leave it at that. The press is not doing its job, and hasn’t for a very long time.