Gotcha!

There is no such thing as a "gotcha question". I know everyone knows this. But I can't help writing about it. So far, I have only heard Republicans use this phrase. Hopefully Democrats know better.

When Republicans claim this, it is either in situations where they don't know the answer and are embarrassed that they don't know the answer, or it is questions they don't want to answer. Sarah Palin often used the phrase for the former reason. Many Republicans use it for the latter reason when they want to hold a position that the base likes but the general population wouldn't like. Or if they have changed their position on something and don't want to talk about it.

The bottom line is that Republicans use this to try to avoid answering questions - to avoid transparency on what they know and / or what they believe.

Having said all of that, I can think of only one small exception. When the press asks if someone is interested in being vice president or in running for president / higher office in distant elections. This is such an uninteresting question that at best provides information that is not that useful and at worst almost no likelihood that the person answering is being completely honest.

In fact, I think that is why the press likes the question so much. They like making politicians squirm, but only on meaningless issues that don't really inform voters. Which is why they will spend so much time asking every Republican under the sun if they want to be VP but won't ask them how they will speed up the recovery and which economists support them.