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Commentary

With all the nonsense and repetition we are hearing on cable news channels about the Ukraine war, we need to deepen our appreciation of the ludicrous, and to get into the habit of roaring with laughter at the stupidities and inanities we hear on TV.

Here are my entries in tbe contest for The Ten Dumbest Questions Asked by Cable News Hosts Contest:

Readers are encouraged to submit their own nominations.

1. “Do you think it was a mistake for NATO to expand its membership eastward, over Russian objections?”

This dead horse has been beaten so nany times since the onset of the war on February 24, 2022 that it is hard to find any piece of the horse left to beat.

We should note in passing that the implication in the question is a Russian talking point.

The question has been aswered hundreds if not thousands of times on cable TV channels. Persuasively.

NATO didn’t “expand” eastward on its own initiative. It accepted the applications for membership of newly independent states which were just emerging from 40 years of domination by the Soviet Union.

That domination resulted from military conquest at the end of World War II, and the subsequent use of tanks whenever a country sought to break free (Poland in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968, plus the threat of military intervention which led General Wojciech Jaruzelski to declare martial law in Poland in 1981).

These countries desperately wanted to join NATO to defend themselves against further Soviet invasions.

This is the Observer’s top candidate for the dumbest question of the 10.

2. “What do you think Putin wants?”

No one knows. Any answer is purely speculative.

What’s the point of the question?

What counts is what Putin and Russia are doing. They are conducting a war of aggression against Ukraine and carrying out war crimes against civilians and civilian infrastructure on a massive scale. Because the atrocities are systematic, they are technically “crimes against humanity”.

3) “We just interviewed (General / Admiral / Ambassador) X on this question. Let’s listen to what he (or she) said, and get your reaction on the other side (of the tape).”

Are you kidding me? With all that is going on in Ukraine, not to speak of the whole world, instead of giving us news you’re asking me for my reaction to what someone else said?

Don’t you know who the guest is and what my expertise is?

Can’t you do a little homework and yourself formulate a coherent question that you want me to answer? If you want to know my views on something, why not just ask me? If what this other person said is relevant, why can’t you just quote him or her in formulating your question?

4. “Russia just committed atrocities in Bucha. What is your reaction? Do you think these actions are war crimes?”

Questions 5-10 are to be supplied later.

Maybe your suggestion will be one of them.

The Trenchant Observer