John Leonard on Dukakis

[question everything]

Back in the 80s, John Leonard was a regular contributor on CBS Sunday Morning.

He had a wonderful comment about what Dukakis should have replied when asked, in a 1988 debate, whether he would still oppose the death penalty if his wife, Kitty, were raped and murdered.

I wonder whether this is available any place online. This is something that should be followed whenever candidates are faced with such outrageous questions.

[Zywiec]

1. Your screen name is Question Everything

yet apparently some questions can't be asked.

[question everything]

2. No, some questions deserve appropriate answers

and Dukakis clearly missed that one.

Leonard provided an excellent rebuttal on how Dukakis should have responded.

[Like It Is]

5. Rozumish po Polsku ?

[Hart2008]

7. no no no!

:rofl:

[Like It Is]

10. I was asking Zywiec.

[Midwestern Democrat]

9. Bernard Shaw showed very poor judgment, IMO.

Shaw should have known that such an emotionally charged, sensationalistic question was going to basically destroy the debate - it completely overshadowed everything else that transpired that evening. In fact, the other moderators that evening have publicly said that they begged Shaw not to ask that question for this very reason.

Dukakis flubbed the question (he says it's because he had received that question or a variant of it hundreds of times in his previous campaigns, and thus, by habit, gave a calm, routine answer to what, for him, was a routine question), but, in fairness, 1988 was a much different media world from 2007 - he probably wasn't expecting such a gutter level question in such an august forum.

[MissMillie]

3. I can't find the John Leonard reference

but I remember on the West Wing there was an episode where they were doing quickfire debate prep and Toby asked the president the question and the President purposefully botched to see if he could get Toby riled up.

Toby said something to the effect: of course you'd want to see him put to death, which is why you probably don't want the families of victims to make these decisions... to assure that justice is served as opposed to revenge.

[question everything]

4. Yes, I kinda remember this episdoe

I guess death penalty is no longer an issue in Presidential politics, once Dukakis lost it.

I did not vote for Clinton in the 1992 primaries because he suspended his New Hampshire campaign to go home to send to death a mentally challenged prisoner. At least in 1992 there were still candidates who were against the death penalty. But no longer.

[Like It Is]

6. Here it is.

Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?

DUKAKIS: No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. We've done so in my own state. And it's one of the reasons why we have had the biggest drop in crime of any industrial state in America; why we have the lowest murder rate of any industrial state in America. But we have work to do in this nation. We have work to do to fight a real war, not a phony war, against drugs. And that's something I want to lead, something we haven't had over the course of the past many years, even though the Vice President has been at least allegedly in charge of that war. We have much to do to step up that war, to double the number of drug enforcement agents, to fight both here and abroad, to work with our neighbors in this hemisphere. And I want to call a hemispheric summit just as soon after the 20th of January as possible to fight that war. But we also have to deal with drug education prevention here at home. And that's one of the things that I hope I can lead personally as the President of the United States. We've had great success in my own state. And we've reached out to young people and their families and been able to help them by beginning drug education and prevention in the early elementary grades. So we can fight this war, and we can win this war. And we can do so in a way that marshals our forces, that provides real support for state and local law enforcement officers who have not been getting that support, and do it in a way which will bring down violence in this nation, will help our youngsters to stay away from drugs, will stop this avalanche of drugs that's pouring into the country, and will make it possible for our kids and our families to grow up in safe and secure and decent neighborhoods.

[Hart2008]

8. What came through in his answer was a condescending glib smugness..

which completely missed the emotional tone of the question.

Yes he did run a dirty campaign in the primaries, i.e., the attack video against Biden, but in all fairness Dukakis was the ersatz candidate. He probably didn't know that he was the guy that Bush wanted to run against all along and that the MSM assured that candidates who could best beat Bush the elder were smeared with a lot of garbage in a completely unprecedented way.