BTW, I never took the "give him something important" as a question. To me it sounded more like a statement that he wanted confirmed.
I agree completely: it was a statement that he wanted confirmed. Vito had the final word on what position his new son in law would occupy in the family, so Tom had to go through the motions of "asking." But he knew as well as Vito that Carlo was a gold-digger. So, far from asking a dumb question, Tom, I believe, was perfectly in synch with his Don.
