SOMEBODY Knows

When we're no longer athletic or attractive, we try to fall back on being "wise". Usually this works no better than the first two, but it's what the pundits get paid big bucks to be, week after week. And , no surprise, they are as a group pretty long in the tooth.
For most of them, "wisdom" means explaining things to the rest of us, often in ways that are as predictable as the tides. Right or wrong, they are known to be boring, and so they aren't holding up their part of the load in the task of "keeping people buying papers."
Is this bad for the future? I don't know. But wisdom can have more than one face. Here's my shot at asking questions that do have answers which are unknown to me. I'm in the dark here, too, but I think the answers would bepretty valuable.
I sat down to write the questions and came up with ten. That's too many. Let's try five, and if you like the format we can try it again:
1. How many prisoners has the US tortured, or hired other countries to torture? I demand answers on this because I cannot stand the thought of torture being done in my name (at least my country's name). Someday, there will be answers to this, most likely from the people we love to dislike - journalists. The people who bring us the answers on torture will become as well known as Woodward and Bernstein in the days of Watergate, even though the torture victims will be mostly dead.
2. Is rap the rightful successor to rock 'n roll? Someone knows this NOW, though I'm not sure who. And I'm not saying it's my kind of sound. Gosh knows I'm too old. But rock is, in my view, WAY overdue to be replaced in the marketplace by something else.
3. Did the campaign planners give Biden advice to let Sarah Palin off the hook in their debate last week in order that Biden not appear to be a bully? I still think he won the debate on points, but got the feeling he was holding back a little, perhaps to keep from reminding people that, after all, it's Cheney's job we're talking about here. Maybe it's better to be friendly and let the election break the Democrats' way without bringing up the image of "Poor Sarah". Tie the battle, win the war.
4. Does McCain REALLY think Sarah Palin could take over as president if something happened to him? After all, he only met her twice before tapping her for the assignment, which seems like WAY too few. Maybe he just won't inwardly consider that his wheels could be closer to falling off than we may realize. To me, he doesn't even seem young for someone who's 72!
5. OK, maybe too many political items on the list, but this is the time they're supposed to be here, right? Here's the last one. Is Dick Cheney still working inside the administration to promote military action against Iran? It's hard to think of power passing out of his hands graciously, and "solving the Iran problem" has been on his personal list for years. The DOD report saying Iran had given up nuke work three years ago slowed up the Bush plans, but I'm not sure they've been absolutely scuttled.
Anyone with answers they have faith in, please let me know. I'll give you the title of "Wise Pundit". At least we know the answer to this year's biggest question: Could a black man be elected president AND the Cubs win the World Series in the same year? That would be, ah, no.