I don't care what Walker or Hillary think about Evolution
We live in a free country and cherish the free press. And yes it's OK for the media to ask whatever they want, unless your name is Obama and then you get a pass on all of those tricky questions from your past.
Governor Scott Walker was in London on some Wisconsin trade mission. It's the kind of trip that a lot of governors make, especially when you are running a state that is suddenly very appealing to investors.
During the trip, Gov Walker got a question about "evolution" and everyone seems to have an opinion about it.
This is what Byron York wrote about it:
"Up until that moment, the story of the London trip might have been Walker's deference to Obama.
Instead, it became, in the words of an Associated Press headline, "Wisconsin Gov. Walker Refuses to Answer Evolution Question."
Walker's political team back home scrambled to fix things, releasing a statement saying he believes "faith and science are compatible." But remarkably, for a man who has run for high office, Walker didn't have a ready-to-repeat answer on evolution. His staff didn't even know his views before drafting the statement.
But Walker learned a few lessons. First, there's no protection from out-of-the-blue questions. Second, Republicans, as Webb suggested, get special treatment when traveling abroad. And third, it doesn't matter if a candidate wants to talk about cheese and industrial sand, he's never the one setting the agenda."
York and some of the pundits are correct that a presidential candidate has to expect the unexpected, especially from "the in the tank Obama media" that is in major disappointment mode about President Obama restarting the Iraq War and making big government very unpopular.
However, it would have been better if serious reporters would have pounded on the question rather than the answer.
The "evolution" question in London reminds me of George Stephanoloous of ABC asking Gov. Romney about "birth control".
These are not serious questions and matter nothing. Again, let's pound on the guy asking these stupid questions rather than the guy on stage trying to politely answer it.
How exactly does Scott Walker's view on evolution affect his performance as governor or perhaps as president? How does it create jobs in Wisconsin? How will it benefit the thousands of black kids stuck in public schools in the inner cities? How will it impact the war against ISIS, as it looks more and more likely that our next president will "inherit" US soldiers fighting in Iraq.
Maybe the question reflects something else, or the fact that many in the media fear a Walker candidacy.
Governor Walker has a lot to offer as a presidential candidate:
1) He took public-sector unions head-on and blew up their corrupt relationship with the Democrat party. You may have noticed that "Walker-ization" may soon be happening in Illinois, another state all tangled up in public-sector contracts. Illinois is another "blue state" losing taxpayers who are sick and tired of funding it, as reported by Susan Adams:
"Illinois, No. 2 on the list, with 61% more people moving out than in, has a depressing story to tell.
Stoll says that over time the state has lost a third of its manufacturing jobs and a quarter of its jobs in construction, and a significant proportion of its unemployed have been out of work for the long term, so the real employment rate there is much higher than the relatively high official figure of 8.9% rate suggests.
The Labor Department stops counting people as unemployed when they have given up looking for work or they take a part-time job that doesn’t pay the rent."
2) He won 2 elections in 2 years, a rather significant accomplishment given that he was the # 1 target of public-sector unions, left-wing blogs, reporters looking for every bit of dirt and finding nothing PLUS the entire MSNBC staff that devoted itself 24/7 to attack him. He won both times!
Nevertheless, we deserve better reporters, or serious reporters. The "evolution" question was not serious.
We have lots of problems in the world and evolution, or whatever a candidate thinks of it, is not among them.
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