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January 5, 2012

"So When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife?"

Patrick Laverty

It's an age-old journalists' "gotcha" question. The mere asking of it assumes that the responder has at one time beat his wife. It's also a tactic that we see being used today in a press release by the RI Democratic party and its chairman, Ed Pacheco.

In the release, Pacheco seems to be grasping at straws in a few different areas, such as claiming Mitt Romney had a poor performance in Iowa in spite of winning the caucus and gaining about the percentage that all polls said he would.

Then Pacheco goes on to ask questions about Congressional candidate Brendan Doherty, and build on those questions as if the previous question was true.

“Is this what we can expect from Doherty as he tries to win a Congressional seat? Does he support Romney’s position on repealing the DREAM Act and denying young immigrants, who are here through no fault of their own and want to serve America, a chance at citizenship? Does he think the middle class should bear the brunt of the economic burden in our country? Should we go back to the days of letting Wall Street write its own rules? Does Doherty believe corporations are people too?” added Pacheco.
Chairman Pacheco seems to want to use this as a pulpit for the DREAM Act. Then he just starts riffing on all these different topics, as if he's reading down a list of stances where Doherty and Pacheco disagree.

Can I try this too? Chairman Pacheco, do you support the answers given by Congressman David Cicilline when he was asked about Providence's finances and when he told us the funds were healthy? Do you think the people of Providence should be forced to bear the brunt of Cicilline's mismanagement of the city's finances? Do you think Cicilline has been a good and effective Congressman in Washington when he has gotten very little self-sponsored legislation passed? Is that a good thing to have such an ineffective Congressman in Washington? Do you agree with Congressman Cicilline's claims that he is going to protect Social Security for seniors when Congress has not even had a single bill put forth that would take away Social Security for seniors, so there was nothing for him to "protect" against?

Thank you for helping this exercise, Chairman Pacheco.

Comments

Patrick - Let's combine this onslaught of loaded questions with the favorite tactic of the late RIFuture blog:

Why has Chairman Pacheco not taken the opportunity to answer these basic questions??? The silence is defeaning!

Posted by: Dan at January 5, 2012 4:22 PM

REPEALING the "Dream Act"?It never passed either house of Congress.
Pacheco ought to rent out his head as the leading end of a colonscope.

Posted by: joe bernstein at January 5, 2012 6:18 PM

Reminds me that the former Chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, Mr J. Michael Levesque is a convicted felon, (obtaining money under false pretences). He stole thousands of dollars from the poor folks in West after he lost his bid for reelection as mayor,

Posted by: Sammy in Arizona at January 5, 2012 9:35 PM

"Reminds me that the former Chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, Mr J. Michael Levesque is a convicted felon, (obtaining money under false pretences). He stole thousands of dollars from the poor folks in West after he lost his bid for reelection as mayor,

Well Levesque will never get my vote. Oh wait, he's not running for anything. Damn! Sammy the Irrelevant got me again.

Posted by: Max D at January 6, 2012 8:55 AM

Sammy - If you aren't getting paid to troll these sites, then you are getting screwed, buddy. Plenty of Democratic campaigns out there that pay good money for partisan tools like you.

Posted by: Dan at January 6, 2012 10:02 AM