(Thanks, KnowWhere. Gosh, and now we know where Del. Comstock can put her survey! - promoted by Eileen)
Every good trial lawyer knows that you never ask a witness a question to which you do not know the answer. And if you phrase the question right, you can almost always get the answer you want.
Delegate Barbara Comstock shows she has learned a few tricks from trial lawyers in putting together her "2010 Legislative Survey," an compendium of neatly-worded leading questions--or in many cases, misleading questions--that no lawyer would have gotten past a judge. And just to make sure that she gets the "right" answers, she appears to have sent the surveys only to the Republicans among her constituents. (Others can find the survey online at www.DelegateComstock.com.)
Take the question about the state budget, which she says faces a shortfall not only because of the nation-wide recession but also because of "overly optimistic budget estimates." Really? How much optimism have any of us been hearing out of our state government in the past couple of years?
But having primed us to think that our legislators and governor have all been a bunch of free-spending budget Polyannas up to this very moment, when the Comstocks of the world arrived to save us, our response to the question of our budget priorities must be obvious. Who could agree to "raise taxes" when another choice suggests we could just "cut wasteful spending"? Gee, why hasn't anyone ever thought of that?
Or how about the question on offshore drilling, which asks if we "support environmentally safe exploration of natural gas and oil off the coastal water areas of Virginia and dedicating much of this money to transportation?" Let's start with that oxymoron, "environmentally safe oil drilling." Is that sort of like calling it "victim-safe rape" if the assailant wears a condom? ("They have very low failure rates these days, your honor.")
But having assured us by how she asks the question that the oil companies wear Kevlar condoms, isn't that a great transportation funding plan? Well, if you've followed the debate, which her target audience almost certainly has not, you know that a) no one has found this wealth of oil off our coasts yet, b) it would take about a dozen years to develop any wells if they did find it--which is rather a long time to wait for a transportation plan, and c) current federal law assigns all those hoped-for royalties to the U.S. treasury, not the state. So it's like balancing the family budget by counting on an inheritance from your rich uncle. Who, darn it, shows no signs of ill health and has fifty kids.
There are more of these kinds of questions in the Comstock survey. We especially like the questions on the federal health care plan and climate legislation. No, our state delegate has no say in federal legislation, but who cares? It's red meat for tea baggers. A trial judge would rule the questions irrelevant and prejudicial, but there is no judge here. There is only Delgate Comstock herself, who will surely announce soon that an overwhelming majority in her district agrees with her completely on every point. After all, in surveys like these, it's not finding out what people think that matters. It's getting the answers you want.
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