I think Zeleny’s question appeals to many in academia because it’s poetic; the tendency to abstract from praxis and towards theory is stronger in academia. I did think the question hit at something interesting: how entrancing (enchanting?) executive power is. When Obama said that he was frustrated by the fact that politicians aren’t deferring politics in this time of crisis, what he really meant was that he wished they’d consent to his agenda. This is the implication with most of his statements about post-partisanship and bipartisanship, as well. Zeleny compared this to Bush’s “this’d be a whole heckuva lot easier if I were dictator” answer. It’s interesting to see the institutional bias of Obama moving from the legislative branch to the executive play out–we have a strong executive in this country, and recent leaders of the unified branch seem to be nothing but tempted by the great amount of power they inherit. Or maybe it speaks to Obama’s idealism.

Also, as a matter of housekeeping, I’d like to highlight that blog posts are “posts”–not “blogs.” “Blog” is a portmanteau of “web” and “log.” It can also be a verb. This is my contribution as a member of the iPod generation.

It seems like we all agree the most valuable part of a news conference is the opportunity to discover “political instincts, prior experiences and deeply-held value.” If that’s the ultimate goal (in addition to policy explanations), what are the standards for evaluating questions? It may be that evaluating them is as much of an art as developing them. On the other hand perhaps the Zeleny question simply was not provocative enough to yield a meaningful response. That seems to be where opinions diverge.

I think it’s quite likely that the interest of political science in news conferences is different than that of the press. We spend a lot of time evaluating the President’s responses in terms of their political implications. I think this tends to leads us to act like umpires in a chess match. To an outsider it might appear we have lost sight of the ultimate goal of questioning.

Then-president Bush could simply have swatted it away with the talking points he used later in his presidency: “I make the mistake of being over-optimistic about my ability to change the tone of Beltway politics.” And, as I speculated above, you would mock that as a hopeless question.

Seriously, go back and look at Dickerson’s question. Consider — please, consider — how the President’s answer shapes your judgment of a given question. What I’m saying is that you’re judging Zeleny’s question based on the answer (well, technically, the reply) that it elicited, and that this is a little bit dangerous.

I’ll give you another example. More than a few of our critics, including Bill Moyers, have zeroed in on a question asked of Bush at the final press conference before the Iraq war. They’ve called it fawning, and stupid, and worse things besides. It was a question from American Urban Radio Networks’ April Ryan. April asked Bush how his faith was guiding him in the crisis.

Here’s the thing. That question grew out of a news report that Bush had told some high-profile supporters that he was doing God’s will. That had piqued April’s curiosity, and she wrestled with how to ask about it. She thought about going directly for “there’s a news report that says this, is it true” but figured he’d swat it away. And so she went with the more roundabout way. He didn’t bite, and she got mocked — dishonestly, I might add, since she told a few of these critics the reasoning behind the question — as a fawning pro-Bush hack.

People judge our questions based on all sorts of criteria — too nice, too mean, a ‘gotcha,’ hopelessly softball, etc. I’m just trying to shed a little light on the process from our perspective.

Just wondering if you saw the article from the May 18, 2009 issue of Newsweek entitled “Prisoners of the White House.” Here’s the link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/195666

The article was basically “Bitter Harvest” but written for normal people. Haha. Is it too early to judge Obama on his use of the presidential staff or do you have some insight? The writer, Evan Thomas, seems to worry about Obama surrounding himself with too many “yes-men.” What do you think?

Gary

Olivier – No need to apologize for being a self-described “Olivier-One-Note”. Someone has to defend the press against my attacks. And Murray is on your side on this one! Although, if you read my initial blog after Obama’s 2nd press conference (and if you haven’t, I wish you would!) you’ll surely note just how effusive and fulsome and enthusiastic I was in praising almost all the journalists who participated for the questions they asked (except for Jeff and, ok, Chuck Todd. But Chuck’s not really a journalist, is he?) Surely I deserve kudos for that?

I confess I don’t see how your John Dickerson example does anything but support my broader point: it may have elicited rage from the right-wing chattering class, but it was a substantively probing question that focused on Bush’s action to date. Although it was relatively open-ended it did not provide much wiggle room – either Bush owned up to a mistake, or he didn’t.

As for the purpose of press conferences, careful readers of my previous blogs will recall that I have spent considerable time pointing out what the press, the public and the president hope to gain and stand to lose by holding a press conference. My basic point is that their interests don’t overlap very much. By now, I think most readers know my target audience – and it isn’t the president or the press (although I’m more than happy to help out when they ask.)

I certainly agree that no one can be sure how presidents will react to a particular question – but one can certainly estimate probabilities; some questions are simply better than others – better at achieving ANY of the goals you cite. And there was a high probability, in my view, that Zeleny’s question would achieve none of your benchmarks. How he could not see that baffles me – and did at the time he asked it.

Of course, reasonable people (including experienced journalists) can disagree with me, particularly since my critique of Zeleny’s question involves nothing remotely approaching political science and is instead pretty much my opinion. (Although you get both here, I do try to distinguish research from opinion. My hope is that there’s more of the former than the latter on this blog.) As for Zeleny’s question, my opinion was – and continues to be – that it was a horrendous waste of a valuable question opportunity, and Zeleny should be penalized by not being allowed to ask any more questions for a long, long time.

However, Murray and you both provide valuable and informed countervailing arguments. That is, I hope, what differentiates this blog from most of the others – we actually encourage the exchange of ideas and views, rather than screaming past one another. After all, this blog is supposed to be educational. So keep those critiques (decaf or fully caffeinated) coming! (And what do others think about Zeleny’s question?)

Finally, I have no idea if Obama took oral exams, never mind if he passed them. Nonetheless, I think the jury is still out regarding whether he would make a better professor than President… But since he’s president, my hope is that journalists ask questions that elicit insight into that job, rather than how well prepared he is to defend his honors thesis. (I will say that it is easier to be president than a professor – we have no staffs and do our own copy editing – but that’s another blog.)