Posted on 11/18/2015 7:45:22 AM PST by TroutStalker
By now, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve seen Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto’s interview with Million Student March organizer Keely Mullen. It was all over the Internet in recent days -- and particularly the right-leaning portion of said Internet, which delighted in a liberal college student struggling to explain how giving everyone free college would be paid for.
The exchange was, in a word, uncomfortable.
Cavuto began by giving Mullen the floor to lay out the demands of her group, which orchestrated student walkouts at 110 college campuses last Thursday. They were: free tuition at public universities, the cancellation of all student debt and a $15-per-hour minimum wage for all campus workers. Cavuto then asked Mullen how to pay for all this.
“Um, great question,†Mullen replied.
It was almost instantly apparent that Mullen was in over her head. She seemed flustered and unprepared. She seemed like, well, a kid.
Yet the interview continued for nine excruciating minutes. Cavuto, who had moderated a Republican presidential debate just a few days earlier, would ask a tough question, Mullen would squirm and fumble her way through a response, then they’d do it all over again.
Given the vocal role students are playing in national conversations about racial discrimination and, naturally, college debt, it’s likely that more media encounters such as this one are on the way. Which raises an important question: Should the press cut student activists some slack, recognizing that their reasoning — or, at least, their ability to articulate it — might not have caught up to their passion? Or should news outlets treat students like true activists and like the adults that they technically are, expecting them to hold their own against journalistic pushback?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The presstitutes shouild write this gal a check for her education, and hourly wage, from their own pocketbook.
Looks a bit like the sort of cloud-dancing types I can remember from my Oberlin under-graduate days. Seriously doubt that he would do any better in an interview with a grounded person, than the girl he describes in the article.
Damn right they should treat them like adults, making unreasonable demands, on the taxpayers of a country in which they are incredibly blessed to be called a "student."
This student was not in junior high school, demanding that the students petition for a soft drink machine in the lunch room. This was a college student -- an adult, and someone speaking on behalf of a much larger group of adults, about major US tax and education policy. If she wants to be that spokesperson, she'd better be able to answer some uncomfortable questions.
Her quizzical, incredulous, confused look was identical to the look my basset gives me after I give him several treats. When they are gone, I have to show him my empty hands, saying several times, “All gone, all gone.”
Cavuto was EXTREMELY kind to her. He wasn’t like Chris Matthews or Joe Scarborough tearing apart a vulnerable person. She shouldn’t have been allowed to go on tv. At least my generation, the baby boomers, no matter how bad they were, were often articulate when interviewed on television.
art of being in college is learning HOW to think. How to reason. How to use logic. When presented with an argument that leads to the opposite of your viewpoint, logic dictates abandoning that viewpoint in favor of the logical one. That’s the lesson she (and everyone) should take from this. When Cavuto says if we just take the 1%’s money, flat out take it, we can’t pay for what you want and she has no response, her college training SHOULD tell her it’s time to reexamine her positions. Unfortunately, college doesn’t teach that. It teaches leftist orthodoxy in the guise of “open mindedness”. She shouldn’t be embarrassed about getting schooled by Cavuto. He’s a professional. She SHOULD be embarrassed days, weeks later if she has not changed her positions.
She wanted the interview to show how smart she was and how dumb Cavuto and her elders are.
She got a lesson in smarts.
Neil is an honorable and decent man. On the other hand, Callum Borchers at the WaPo seems to be an idiot.
It is about time someone publicly took on this spoiled, opinionated generation. The ‘more educated’ they become, the more ‘intolerable’ they become.
The only answer for them is JESUS.
Thank you for posting. They always look alike, some smiling dipshit with an immature beard, glasses and a vacant stare. They are all “pajama boys!”
Rain tax ?
I really believe that he’d spoken with her before her on-air interview and he pegged her for what she wasn’t right then.
I think he then decided that he’d use the Socratic method of learning with her and ask her questions designed to push her to her own conclusion that what she was espousing - had been taught - wasn’t possible. Cavuto was patient and understanding and always with the right questions. When he finally realized she was a lost cause only then did he end up just telling her there was no way to do what she and her other idiot students wanted.
“Should the press cut student activists some slack, recognizing that their reasoning  or, at least, their ability to articulate it  might not have caught up to their passion?”
Yes to the extent that one of the MSNBC wankers would grant such mercy to the head of a group like Young Conservative Christians for America.
No slack for students.
Students are dangerous because they are the most likely to turn into mobs when agitators are introduced on campus. How many governments have been toppled by “student movements?”
Generally, in tv, someone else does the pre-interview. So I doubt Cavuto had spoken to her. It’s possible that he sized her up - or an aide did - and he decided to be gentle with her. I thought he was very impressive - more like a sad father than the big bad wolf.
The amazing thing is that she doesn't know how incompetent she is and have enough sense to keep her mouth shut in public..
That he was, he tried, but then I detected a little bit of mischief in him. Kind of like a cat playing with a rat before the kill.
Here is where he started Playing with that RAT....he asked "so we should go back to the 100% tax rate?" Rat says, uh hmm Yeah.
He was definitely nicer than he needed to be, she just would not give up on her stupidity. 100% tax, yep she would pay that she said. IDIOT
If you are old enough to vote, and old enough to permit yourself to be manipulated, indoctrinated and pandered to... you are old enough to take responsibility for what comes out of your mouth.
Do they want to be taken seriously?
They want to disrupt school in the name of self serving demands.
Do they want to be taken seriously?
Asking how a major expansion of government programs might be paid for is not harsh questioning.
Do they wish to be taken seriously?
Turning free speech on it's head presents fundamental challenges to academic institutions.
Do they wish to be taken seriously?
“The kid” is the one interjecting herself by making her temper-tantrum protests public specticals. YES it is absolutely fair game to show just who is behind these “protests”
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