I dont know.

Thus proclaimed Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential hopeful, when asked by The Posts Dan Balz and Robert Costa on Saturday whether President Obama is a Christian.

This is not a matter of conjecture. The correct answer is yes: Obama is Christian, and he frequently speaks about it in public. Balz and Costa presented Walker with this information to give him a second chance to answer.

But even when prompted with the facts, Walker in Washington for the National Governors Association meeting persisted, saying, Ive actually never talked about it or I havent read about that, and, Ive never asked him that, and, Youve asked me to make statements about people that I havent had a conversation with about that.

This is an intriguing standard. Ive never had a conversation with Walker about whether hes a cannibal, a eunuch, a sleeper cell for the Islamic State, a sufferer of irritable bowel syndrome or a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. By Walkers logic, it would be fair for me to let stand the possibility that he just might be any of those simply because I have no personal and direct refutation from him.

Walker justifies his agnosticism on grounds that he is avoiding gotcha questions. He caused a furor when he used the same logic last week to avoid saying whether Obama loves his country after Rudy Giuliani, at a dinner with Walker, volunteered his view that Obama does not. To me, this is a classic example of why people hate Washington and, increasingly, they dislike the press, he told my colleagues Balz and Costa, two of the best in the business.

This is insidious, and goes beyond last weeks questioning of Obamas patriotism, because it allows Walker to wink and nod at the far-right fringe where people really believe that Obama is a Muslim from Kenya who hates America. The governor is flirting with a significant segment of the Republican primary electorate: those who have peddled the notion (accepted by 17percent of Americans at the end of Obamas first term) that Obama is a Muslim.

Beyond that, Walkers technique shuts down all debate, because theres no way to have a constructive argument once youve disqualified your opponent as unpatriotic, un-Christian and anti-American. On the Internet, Godwins Law indicates that any reasonable discussion ceases when the Nazi accusations come out; Walker is essentially doing the same by refusing to grant his opponent legitimacy as an American and a Christian.

But if this is Walkers standard, it seems only fair that it should be applied to him, as well. Here is what one of those meet-the-candidate Q&As might look like if the answers were drawn from actual demurrals Walker has used in other contexts in recent weeks:

Why does Scott Walker hate America?

See the original post here:
Milbank: Scott Walkers insidious agnosticism