Not every question requires an answer. Sometimes the hope is that there will be no answer. Questioning can be "posturing," that is, taking a position rather than soliciting information. By the questions raised, information is given as well as asked. Often playing to the audience of listeners or bystanders, questions are intended to manipulate others while vindicating the posture of the speaker. One needs only to listen to a congressional hearing or a political debate to watch masters of an art most of us practice. Isn't it so!

Watching a televised presidential news conference recently, one could not be sure whether the President of the United States was answering reporters' questions or dodging interrogatory missiles. Not at a loss for words, the president did a creditable job of bobbing, w…