"So When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife?"

It's an age-old journalists' "gotcha" question. The mere asking of it assumes that the responder has at one time beat his wife. It's also a tactic that we see being used today in a press release by the RI Democratic party and its chairman, Ed Pacheco.

In the release, Pacheco seems to be grasping at straws in a few different areas, such as claiming Mitt Romney had a poor performance in Iowa in spite of winning the caucus and gaining about the percentage that all polls said he would.

Then Pacheco goes on to ask questions about Congressional candidate Brendan Doherty, and build on those questions as if the previous question was true.

“Is this what we can expect from Doherty as he tries to win a Congressional seat? Does he support Romney’s position on repealing the DREAM Act and denying young immigrants, who are here through no fault of their own and want to serve America, a chance at citizenship? Does he think the middle class should bear the brunt of the economic burden in our country? Should we go back to the days of letting Wall Street write its own rules? Does Doherty believe corporations are people too?” added Pacheco.

Can I try this too? Chairman Pacheco, do you support the answers given by Congressman David Cicilline when he was asked about Providence's finances and when he told us the funds were healthy? Do you think the people of Providence should be forced to bear the brunt of Cicilline's mismanagement of the city's finances? Do you think Cicilline has been a good and effective Congressman in Washington when he has gotten very little self-sponsored legislation passed? Is that a good thing to have such an ineffective Congressman in Washington? Do you agree with Congressman Cicilline's claims that he is going to protect Social Security for seniors when Congress has not even had a single bill put forth that would take away Social Security for seniors, so there was nothing for him to "protect" against?

Thank you for helping this exercise, Chairman Pacheco.