My friend and colleague Diane will be in the audience when President Bush speaks to the City Club of Cleveland this Monday, March 20. It’s been announced that there will be a Q&A session.
What question would you suggest she ask? One per Doper, please.
Some guidelines. The question must be:
respectful (not a rant)
short and to the point (not a speech)
based on fact or reasonable inference
allow the President as little “wiggle room” as possible in his answer
I offer no guarantees that Diane will be chosen from out of the audience by the President, or that she will ask your question (she doesn’t know I’m doing this yet). But I welcome your suggestions.
We have a law against torture, but you insist it doesn’t apply to you. How can you justify such a position when you took an oath to enforce the laws of the land?
all answers will be prepared, complete with the usual techniques*
no followup will be allowed
*Politicians prefer to have stooges ask questions. (What are your greatest achievements in office?)
They will answer with slogans. (Is Iraq a mess? We are fighting a war on terrorism.)
They will pick on a specific word in the question. (Is Iraq a complete mess? No, we have achieved certain things.)
They will answer a different question. (Are you ashamed of the war in Iraq? I am proud of our troops.)
Having warned you, she could try:
did God tell you to invade Iraq?
do you personally believe in evolution?
could you have handled the Hurrican Katrina crisis better?
Unless she gets a follow up, then who cares? He’ll just babble something vague about freedom or terrorism, even if it has nothing to do with the question and move on.
You can bet that questions will have to be submitted beforehand. Any question that would be tough or reflect badly on POTUS wil be screened, and quite possibly the person submitting it will be detained by the secret service asking pointed questions along the lines of “Why do you hate America?”. And they won’t be being sarcastic. I bet all the questions will be something like “How do you stay so fit and trim given all you enormous responsibilities?”
Providing, of course, that the people who will be allowed to ask questions have not already been hand-picked and coached, here is what will most likely happen:
If her question is one he is trained to answer, she will get the prepared answer.
If the question is one he hasn’t been coached on, he will either:
A. Pretend he didn’t hear the question and move on, or
B. Give an answer that has nothing to do with the question, or
C. Get off the script and flub it like the master debater he is.
Mr. President, I feel very honoured to be in a position to ask you a question like this. Why don’t you accept unscripted questions from the press regularly, like the leaders of other democracies?
Could you give us an estimate on when you’ll be considering announcing your intention to study the prospect of formulating a timetable for withdrawal of our troops from Iraq?