@Lifeofthemidn. What he said may not have been the very best response, but, really, what should he have said, given the situation, which I suppose was the typical “gottcha” media question? Imagine you’re standing there, as a serious candidate for the Presidency, expecting (and prepared for) any number of questions about important policy issues. But suddenly you’re asked about what your sons are doing. And with the implication that they’re not doing what they “should” be doing. Well, what would you say? On the spur of the moment he probably said something that sounds a bit lame. I would have said: “(1) What my sons are doing is none of your business. None of your business. Period. (2) But, in the interest of educating the public a bit on how you media-bastards operate, let me ask you: What are your sons doing? What are the sons of all you talking-heads doing? What are the sons of all the libs in Congress and elsewhere doing? Why don’t you ask them (and yourselves) that question? If the fact that one’s sons (or daughters!) don’t serve in Iraq is a serious drawback to elective office, how do libs anywhere, with your connivance, ever get elected?

The fact that he did not answer in similar vein indicates that (1) he was not prepared for the question and, on the spur of the moment, resorted to a lame but probably, all-in-all, relatively “safe” response (apres tout, who, other than you, recalls that response?), and/or (2) he may have calculated that a lame but totally forgettable response was politically the best, in the sense that, however lame it might be, hardly anyone would notice or care. We must always remember, in judging Presidential contenders, that they face a very specific “bottom-line”: a majority of the electorate. (A majority of the Electoral College, but, in practice, that is almost always (excepting Florida 2000) the same as a majority of the electorate.) EVERY candidate should be expected to dodge/obfuscate/weasle-out-of answering “forthrightly” all secondary questions that concern a few, but would, unless the answer is “incendiary” (as my answer above would have been), have no bearing on the electoral outcome. Focus on the main things! As to all that other crap, cut the pols, of whatever stripe, some slack.