Silly Questions

If ifs and ans were pots and pans, we'd have no use for tinkers. -- Irish proverb

"The saddest words of tongue or pen, are just these four:
It might have been." -- Rudyard Kipling

   Interviewers are fond of asking questions that no sensible political candidate would answer. That assumes, however, that the candidate is, in fact, sensible. Even so, the questions are seldom answered directly, if at all.
   Example question number 1: "If you knew then what you know now, would you have ,,, ":
   Sensible answer: "But I didn't know then what I know now. I made decisions based on information available at the time. Information that became available months or years later may or may not have influenced any decisions. There's no way of knowing what might have been."

   Example question number 2: ""If you don't win the nomination, will you support whoever the nominee is?"
   Sensible answer: "That question opens the possibility that I will lose. I didn't enter this contest with the intention of losing. My goal is to win, so any question based on the likelihood of losing is unanswerable."
   Follow-up question: "Yes, but what if you do lose?"
   Answer: "I'll deal with that remote possibility if it ever happens. Meanwhile, my goal is to win."