Originally published at: Pete Buttigieg makes short work of Fox News reporter who tried to entrap him with a tweet his husband made | Boing Boing
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Chasten laid the trap, Fox fell into it and Pete went on Fox to deliver the coup de grâce.
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I smell bait for the future presidential run. Even though it fits my personal politics, this comment is about as spontaneous as Elizabeth Warren’s “You didn’t build that” speech (or even her “I’m angry” in front of the Supreme Court publicity speech).
Good for him though. Especially talking over the “reporter.”
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One does try to think about and plan what one says if asked to speak at a rally or demonstration. This doesn’t mean that those aren’t your feelings.
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We don’t need more “spontaneity” from our elected leaders. We need elected leaders who are thoughtful, prepared and compassionate.
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Sadly, there is quite a gulf between the voters who want thoughtful, competent leadership and voters who want WWF Monday Night Raw.
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BlockquoteAnd the bottom line is this: any public figure should always always be free from violence, intimidation and harassment, but should never be free from criticism, or people exercising their First Amendment rights.
This is exactly the correct attitude for an elected official (however high up or low down the chain of command) to take. Thank you, Mr. Buttigieg.
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I’d vote for Dwayne Johnson, tho.
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Sure, I agree with that. I’m just saying, let’s not pretend that Buttigieg is owning the reporter with the aplomb we imagine coming from an Aaron Sorkin TV show. It’s good to have a thoughtful response and a strategy to deal with bad faith questioning, interruption, etc. But the trap we fall into when taking the response of politicians (or political affiliates, as this site tends to do with Jen Psaki) as something to be celebrated is that the focus becomes about the “owning,” rather than the substance of what is being said and the stakes of both the answers and the questions being asked.
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Was their something wrong with the substance of what he said?
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That was well said!
I like how he answered the question instead of turning it into something about what’s appropriate for, say, the spouse a sitting SCOTUS judge to say or do, though that would’ve been okay, too. 
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No. I’d just point out that the title of this article doesn’t actually discuss what Buttigieg was responding to (the right to privacy on the part of Supreme Court justices), nor does the tweet accompanying the clip. What are we focusing on here? That Buttigieg made “short work of Fox News reporter who tried to entrap him.” Shouldn’t we be focused on what Buttigieg is actually saying?
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The dialogue in a scripted Sorkin show isn’t exactly off-the-cuff stuff either. Those actors had writers. Even the actors playing writers had writers.
I don’t see how Buttigieg anticipating and preparing for this question in any way diminishes the way he owned the reporter. It’s what an intelligent person does before a televised interview, just like a job applicant should anticipate and prepare answers for specific questions before a job interview.
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I don’t think it does, as I mentioned in the comment you responded to and earlier. I think our fascination with “owning the right” should be interrogated (particularly vis-a-vis “owning the libs”), because I think there can be the tendency to make the “owning” to become the sole focus, as I mentioned in my other comment.
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So what? Why should it be ‘spontaneous’?
Why shouldn’t he have thought about what he might say in such a situation? Presumably, he was invited on to Fox and agreed because they told him this was what they wanted to talk about. Is the fact that a politician can put together several coherent sentences to make a reasoned argument rather than splutter irrelevances such a surprise these days?
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Wait, what? Where? What? This is not mentioned in the write up.
This whole “owning the libs” thing is by no means a “both sides” issue.
It’s almost like you’re comparing “coal-rolling” to “well-thought, applicable responses to posed questions on national media.” 
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Yes, the Super Chicken standard for public officials. I am not going to wait up for public figures to fight a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way, nor to demonstrate that with great power comes great responsibility.
I do expect public figures to concede that they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.
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i think Pete deals with this kind of stuff day in and day out, and has for years. he knows the proper response, and he is a master at shutting down this kind of stuff.
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