Ask Tough Questions?

Once upon a time, the media asked tough questions…and they got answers. Would that it were still so. “At 87, Wallace still tells it like it is” is the headline for Suzanne C. Ryan interview with Mike Wallace in today’s Boston Globe. She asked him what he would like to have asked George Bush had he consented to an interview. Here’s Wallace’s question:

What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?

But Wallace was a bit more circumspect when asked what he thought of FOX News:

Well, my son [Chris Wallace] works for them. . . . [Fox News chairman and CEO] Roger Ailes is a man I admire very much. He understood there was a market that was not being served. He was right.

Some say that with age comes the freedom to speak one’s mind, implying that the years (of presumably accumulated wisdom) have earned them the right and/or that being already established or retired they have nothing to lose.

What do you say?