Loaded Question - Historical Examples

Historical Examples

Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) claims to have answered (when she should have challenged) a loaded question on 60 Minutes on 12 May 1996. Lesley Stahl asked, regarding the effects of UN sanctions against Iraq, "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Madeleine Albright: "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” She later wrote of this response

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one’s fault but my own.

President Bill Clinton, the moderator in a town meeting discussing the topic "Race In America", in response to a participant argument that the issue was not affirmative action but "racial preferences" asked the participant a loaded question: "Do you favor the United States Army abolishing the affirmative-action program that produced Colin Powell? Yes or no?"

For another example, the New Zealand corporal punishment referendum, 2009 asked:

"Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"

Murray Edridge, of Barnardos New Zealand, criticized the question as "loaded and ambiguous" and claimed "the question presupposes that smacking is a part of good parental correction".

On June 13, 2012, National Basketball Association (NBA) commissioner David Stern asked radio personality Jim Rome the loaded question, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" in making a point about his feelings about Rome's interview.