It helps to know the answer before asking the question

A seasoned lawyer knows that when trying a case in court he should never ask a witness a question if he is not prepared for the answer to that question. To ignore the principle is to court disaster.

A lawyer joke sent to me some time ago by an anonymous pen pal with a mysterious return address that for years has read merely “Up River” illustrates the point. (I suspect he no longer remains up river after my recent change of venue some 200 miles to the north of my old digs on the lower Penobscot, but his periodic mailings will remain welcome, no matter the bogus return address.)

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard his tale of two lawyers laid low by a seemingly benign question:

During a trial in a small southern town, the prosecuting attorney called an elderly grandmother to the stand as his first witness. Approaching her, he asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know me?”

“Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams,” she replied. “I’ve known you since you were a young boy, and, frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot, when you haven’t the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you. …”

Flabbergasted and not knowing what else to do, the lawyer pointed across the courtroom to the defense attorney. “And Mrs. Jones, do you also know the defense attorney?”

She replied that she certainly did know the man – had known him since he was a mere lad, as well. “He’s lazy, bigoted and has a drinking problem,” she continued. “He can’t build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he has cheated on his wife with three different women, one of whom is your wife. Why, yes, I know him.”

Whereupon the judge ordered both lawyers to approach the bench. In a quiet voice he warned them, “If either of you shysters asks her if she knows me, I’ll throw both your sorry butts in jail for contempt.”

Knowing the answer to the question before asking it is not a benefit limited to the legal profession or to young suitors fixing to hit their lovers with the big inquiry about tying the marriage knot.

It is of paramount importance in politics, for example. Especially during nationally televised congressional hearings when a politician’s questions are often intended not to get to the heart of the problem at hand, but to skewer the opposition while creating an irresistible sound bite for the six o’clock news in hopes of impressing potential voters in the next election.

Knowing the answer beforehand can be of immense help to a newspaper reporter, as well, particularly in investigative or political reporting where nothing gets the reporter’s adrenalin flowing so much as a newsmaker’s “wrong” answer to a sensitive question.

It’s a safe bet that reporter Chris Wallace of the Fox Network knew the answers to questions about the Clinton administration’s hunt for Osama bin Laden before posing them to former President Bill Clinton recently. And that he was pretty sure, as well, that the questions – delivered with Wallace’s patented smirk – would cause Clinton to come totally unglued on camera in a rare moment of candid reaction that was a thing of beauty to behold.

There are times, however, when knowing the answer ahead of its asking is of no help whatsoever, unless it is to drive the reporter nuts. A yellowed passage that I have long treasured from syndicated columnist James Kilpatrick’s book “The Writer’s Art” cites a congressional conference report of decades ago on a bill to establish a national policy on energy.

The bill proposed to give the president “a substantial measure of administrative flexibility to draft the price regulatory mechanism in a manner designed to optimize production from domestic properties subject to a statutory parameter requiring the regulatory pattern to prevent prices from exceeding a maximum weighted average.”

A reporter assigned to interview the author of that report would know full well that the answer to any conceivable question he might ask of the person would be a ration of unadulterated gobbledygook. No two ways about it.

Which is why any sensible reporter, before being sent on his way, would most likely ask the obvious question of his editor: “Won’t someone please just shoot me right now?”

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.