I have a media pet peeve as an experienced cross examiner. Media invariably asks people, “what do you think of person A saying X?” Recent example asking gop what they think of barr comparing coronavirus lockdowns with slavery

This just makes it so easy for the person to say, “I don’t have a comment on what barr says.” A cop out no doubt but easy.

Kinda reasonable sounding - why do I have to answer for everything person A says?

The media should instead just ask about X. “Do you think coronavirus lockdowns are analogous to slavery?”

Makes it much harder to parry by saying “I’m not going to comment on everything every other person says.” They can still try it but then it’s much more clear that they are refusing to answer.

And if the person says “yeah I don’t think coronavirus lockdowns are like slavery” you can still accurately state, “so and so disagrees with Barr’s statement that ___ “

Plus often it will not clue the person into why you are asking, they may not even know person A said it, so more likely they say “what? That’s bizarre”

“Do you have comments about this member of your party saying something asinine” will invariably tell them to give a non answer. It’s just terrible questioning

Good Cross examination requires not signaling to the witness exactly what the danger is in answering

Don’t even get me started on how bad almost every member of Congress is at this in hearings