BY ANDY SIEGEL
Does anyone not love a game of 20 Questions? You start with the entire roster of humans who’ve ever lived (I’m sure Google’s working on it), and you winnow your way, with exacting binary efficiency, toward just one person.
Is he male? Yes.
When choosing a 20 Questions subject, it’s important not to pick someone too obscure. It’s no fun having your friends turn despondent as they’re forced to ask random questions about the whole of recorded civilization. [“Is he from New Zealand?” No. (Sigh.)] Of course, too easy (Paris Hilton) and the game is more like 6 Questions.
I’ve found the key to a satisfying 20Q is to pick someone you both know (someone you both know that you both know) who occupies a special spot on the fringe of each of your awarenesses. Ideally this person is someone neither of you has ever really thought about, or at least not in a while, but he or she’s in that brain of yours, somewhere.
Is he alive? Yes. (He was, at the time.)
In the mid-90’s, I was on a car trip in Arizona with my younger brother Jonathan. The road was long, it was getting dark, and we were playing games to stay awake. We’d already burned through Ghost and Botticelli – it was time for some 20 Questions. It got to be my turn to pick a name, and, being the older brother, I wanted to pick a wickedly tough one.
I scanned a few categories in my head – sports, movies, politics. Too easy, too hard. Then a name popped in, and for these two young men from Washington, DC, it was the perfect choice, even sublime. Perhaps the finest 20 Questions answer of all time!
Is he in politics? No.
Not at the time! (He was then a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.)
But just two or three years before, he’d won 19% of the popular vote in a three-way race to become the next Vice President of the United States. Yes, I’m talking about Ross Perot’s chosen #2, Admiral James B. Stockdale.
Why, you might ask (and ask away – you have 19 more), is Admiral Stockdale the best 20 Questions answer ever? Here, for the inquiring mind, are four reasons:
1. He’s Undeniably Someone You Should Know
No one can ever fault you for picking him. He’s a man who, according to some polls, was fairly close to being a heartbeat away from the presidency. It wasn’t so long ago, either – he ran against Clinton and Gore! If someone doesn’t know who he is, you can easily make him feel stupid.
2. He’s Someone Most People Have Likely Forgotten About
Even his half-hour-commercial-buying boss Perot has fallen out of the public eye. (Is he still rich? Crew-cutted?) More so for AJBS. Even though Admiral Stockdale was a highly respected Vietnam war hero, when Perot picked him most people hadn’t ever heard of him. Then, after election day, we didn’t really hear from Stockdale again. I think it can be said that Admiral James B. Stockdale was the political equivalent of Chumbawumba: a one-hit wonder.
3. He Defies Classification
There were many things he was: soldier, author, academic fellow. And many things he wasn’t: Republican, Democrat, political office-holder. And there was one thing he both was and wasn’t: politician. (He never ran for anything else, and thought he was only a temporary, place-holder candidate.) All these hazy classifications make for a 20 Questions fact-finding quagmire. Questions beget only more questions. Which leads us to:
4. His Famous Quote Was Actually Questions
“Who am I? Why am I here?”
Admiral Stockdale’s dual-query introduction at the Vice Presidential debate vs. Gore and Quayle clinches him, as far as I’m concerned, as the Greatest 20 Questions Answer of All Time.
Let’s begin with the second question, “Why am I here?” This could be the most openly philosophical statement ever made in American politics. It’s not something we’re accustomed to hearing a candidate utter under bright lights on national television – it’s what we ask ourselves alone, at the bathroom mirror, at two in the morning, staring at our souls and into the abyss.
And his first question, “Who am I?” Well, that would be nothing less than a summary of the entire game of 20 Questions! How can you top that?
There’s no question about one thing: Admiral Stockdale would have been the quintessential Vice President. A question mark of a public figure in the most questionably defined role in government. A man ready to ask the tough questions: “Who am I? Why am I here?” Could anything be more appropriate for a Vice President to ask?
Of course, none of the perfection or profundity of my 20 Questions choice soothed Jonathan. When he learned the answer, he expressed his sentiments in his 21st question:
Andy, what the hell?
