Published: December 04, 2007 09:23 pm            

Candidates’ debatable debates

Even though I am quite interested in politics, I have not been watching the presidential debates. The process began far too early for my interest or even for my approval.

I am much more interested to hear debates about some things that must be acted upon next week or next month than I am to hear candidates explain what they think they will do a year and a half from now (as it was when all this started). I also consider that much of the questioning has been uneven, partisan, and silly. But we are now getting a bit closer to the primaries, and so I suppose my interest has picked up. Perhaps for that reason, I watched some of the debate this past week.

I’m afraid that my opinions about the questioning process did not change much. The ones I observed were selected from YouTube submissions. The mysterious “selection” process itself has since received much attention because by the wildest of coincidences, as it turns out, many of those questioners happen to be declared supporters of candidates from the other party and/or affiliated with organizations such as the Council for American-Islamic Relations. But what once would have seriously damaged any major network's hopes for credibility with the public will, I predict, simply be admitted with a shrug of the shoulders and a statement or two that it should have done better homework to prevent these unforeseen coincidences from occurring. That appears just to be the state of things today. Where is the League of Women Voters when we need it?

But more worrisome to me as I watched the debate, and did not have this post-debate information anyway, was the level of the questioning itself. One fellow, who, incidentally, probably was not a member of the other party, declared rather menacingly into his webcam that “I am Joseph. I am from Dallas, Texas, and how you answer this question will tell us everything we need to know about you.

Do you believe every word of this book? Specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand, do you believe this book?” While Joseph was asking this question he was holding a Bible up in from of the webcam.

I thought the candidates who were asked to answer the question did fairly well, but they were all much easier on the questioner than I feel he deserved. First of all, if Joseph truly believes that the answer to that question will tell us “everything we need to know about a candidate” then I would submit that political judgment is not Joseph's strong suit. I personally know hundreds of people who would answer yes to that question but who are not especially qualified to be President of the United States.

Secondly, it is the easiest thing in the world simply to answer yes to a question such as that one. A more informative assessment of what someone believes can be gained from observing what he has done.

Thirdly, we have had some presidents who served us well who would not have answered yes to that question-or answered it at all. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind. Jefferson did not believe every word of the Bible. And regarding the need for such public declarations, he wrote, “It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith which the laws have left between God and himself.”

And speaking of those laws, fourthly, no candidate mentioned Article VI of the U.S. Constitution which includes the guarantee that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

And if we cannot require a religious test for office, should we be submitting candidates to one? That, I submit, is a slippery slope.

Much better, I think, to observe a person’s life. And let's hear candidates share their goals and values and principles. But the last thing we need is to have presidential candidates grilled by someone waving a Bible over YouTube as to whether or not they believe every word in it.

I personally believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. I revere it. But simplistic questions about the Bible in a political debate do not help the cause of faith. And they don’t help with the election.

        

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