Pete Stark smears Minutemen; inept questioner just takes it, asks weak questions

The video at peekURL.com/vmch8vb shows Rep. Pete Stark (from the East Bay in California) making various outrageous statements when asked by constituents about immigration issues. The initial questioner is from a Minuteman group, and Stark leads off by asking him "Who you gonna kill today?" The questioner then repeats back his question, and stumbles into his prepared, weak questioning.

This illustrates yet again that those who aren't experienced at asking questions should put their egos aside and instead recruit experienced people - preferably trial lawyers or the like - to ask questions at such events. Obviously, anyone would be taken aback by such an opening line, but the questioner was able to recover and if he were a trial lawyer or similar he could have damaged Stark's credibility by walking Stark through his fallacious argument (such as it is). Stark makes other similar comments, and they don't try to show others his sleazy, sloppy thinking. Instead, they ask weak questions like "why aren't you securing the border" or similar. Stark's reply is fairly obvious: he says the border is secure. He also says the Bracero program still exists; it hasn't existed for decades as the video points out but we do still have guest workers programs for agriculture and the like. I wouldn't make that big of a deal out of the Bracero bit.

This video is like all the others in the bad questions file: it's just a show, it's not going to change any minds, and those involved were not doing a public service but are just wasting others' time.

7/2/10 UPDATE: Regarding why this post concentrates on the questioner and not Stark, let me put it this way: if a bear steals your food at night, who are you going to blame, the bear, or the person whose job it was to keep bears out of camp? Stark is who he is and was just doing what he does. He wouldn't do that if people like the questioner would sit down and let those more competent take the mic. About the only good thing to come out of this is it will make some people more cognizant of how little respect many in Washington DC have for them. Most people watching it will not end up being fans of Pete Stark, but he'll still end up being re-elected because most of his previous supporters will still be supporters. Other than that, the video (which has almost 200,000 views at post time) is just entertainment.

And, entertainment like this is extremely dangerous. During an amnesty bill push, those on the other side - the GatewayPundit types for instance - would promote entertainment like this day after day, causing a stir but not really changing the fundamentals of the debate. Meanwhile, the Democrats and some Republicans would be hard at work ramming through their amnesty bill.

Once again: self-promotional, argument-free, time-wasting entertainment like this should not be encouraged in any way. Instead, people should follow the question authority plan and recruit smart, experienced questioners who can truly hold politicians accountable.