Should you dodge a hypothetical question?

I suspect most politicians have used the “it’s a hypothetical question” reason to avoid answering a question. Over at Slate there’s an interesting piece praising Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama for his enthusiasm in answering hypotheticals, which very much sets him out from the crowd:

For the last two weeks, the Democratic political conversation has been consumed with hypothetical questions. Last week, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton engaged in a multiday set-to over whether they would meet with nasty dictators. This week, Barack Obama doubled down on hypotheticals by raising his own hypothetical situation in his sweeping speech on foreign policy. If he found actionable intelligence about al-Qaida leaders hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan, he said he would send in troops whether the Pakistani government liked it or not. When asked the next day about using nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said he never would use them.

Perhaps as a former law professor, Obama isn’t afraid of these kinds of questions. Law school is nothing but hypotheticals. Or perhaps Obama is comfortable because his answer to the 2002 hypothetical about whether he would vote to authorize force against Iraq has worked to his political advantage. If he’d ducked then, he couldn’t gloat now.