This is a mean trick and also very, very funny: CNN’s Chris Moody systematically bummed most of the Republican presidential hopefuls by asking them who the greatest living president is. Living. No, living. You can’t say Ronald Reagan. Stop saying that. Christ, they said it again.
Moody cornered everyone he could find at the South Carolina Freedom Summit, one of the many Republican events with “freedom” in the name leading up to the 2016 elections. He asked Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Ben Carson, Donald Trump and Rick Perry, who each either stumbled through an answer, went with only-11-years-dead Reagan, said “I don’t know,” (Ben Carson) or, in Rick Perry’s case, pretended not to hear Moody and stumbled off as quickly as he could, shouting an anxious “Bye y’all!” into the breeze. It’s really something:
The problem here, of course, is that praising Obama or Jimmy Carter is off limits, Clinton likewise and by a factor of a million, and either Bush could be construed as some kind of proxy vote for Jeb. (Also, praising W. is… still not a good move for anyone who wants to get in spitting distance of the White House.)
Moody pointed out on Twitter, there were better—or at least more entertaining—ways to handle that one:
Really though, would it have been that hard to say “Bush One” and just scoot away before he had time to ask you a follow-up? Or is Rick Perry’s “I’m hard of hearing and also very busy shaking this elderly white man’s hand” the best move?
