Let Me First Say . . .

You want to know what bullshit sounds like? I'll give you a hint: you can hear it from just about every single political, legal, or economic guest, "expert", or commentator on any televised news show.

It goes something like this: the show's host asks a question that the guest doesn't want to answer. The guest, rather than answer the question, instead says, "Thank you for having me on today. (Optional) Before I get your question (which the guest has no intention of doing), let me first say--"

That's it, "Let me first say . . ." This is television code for "You know and I know that there is no way I'm going to go anywhere near that question, so I'm going to give a wink and a nod and talk about something completely different in the hopes of either steering the discussion back to my talking points or eating up enough of your air time that you won't have time to ask the question again. As the host, you will meekly try to get back to the original question, or not, depending on your network, before giving up and going on the next issue."

This tactic, which apparently is part of the mutually understood covenant of the media business, has had the infuriating result of making every TV interview completely worthless because no question ever gets answered. Of course, both the guests and the interviewers are fine with that because TV interviews are not about answering questions anyway, they are about marketing and entertainment.

So the next time you watch a TV interview, get out your notepad and tally up how many times you hear, "Let me first say. . ." Or better yet, demand to know the truth. As long as we continue to accept shameless dissembling in place of integrity and credibility, we will never actually know about or understand the issues that affect our daily lives.