Hiller asked Bush to name the leaders of Chechnya, Taiwan, Pakistan and India. Media wits leapt to mock Bush for his ignorance, and media thinkers leapt to opine that his inability to name names on the spot was reminiscent of Ted Kennedy's disastrous 1980 failure to give Roger Mudd a coherent explanation as to why he wished to be president. Yes, said we chin-pullers, this was a gaffe with legs, one that would resonate. Hiller's stunt does indeed resonate, but not in quite the way we would have it. We are so relentlessly mindless.
Reporters like to picture themselves as independent thinkers.
Every day, journalists go out into a world of confusion and chaos, and every day they are obliged to present the passing confusion in what appears to be order. So, for survival's sake, most journalists learn to see the world through a set of standard templates into which they plug each day's events. We are so blatantly unfair. Almost everyone knows that they could not, out of the blue and with the cameras rolling, dredge up the answers to Hiller's questions. This includes most if not all of Bush's campaign rivals.