Through some amazing mix up you are somehow sent press credentials to the next televised presidential address. When you arrive at the Press Room, you’re even more amazed to find that the credentials get you in, right up front in the good seats. A few minutes later, the murmuring and noise come to a halt, and suddenly, there he is. George W. Bush, leader of the free world.
He makes it through his speech, and for sake of imagination let’s say that it contained no new or relevant information. The question and answer period is ready to begin. Suddenly, he’s pointing at you, acknowledging your desire to ask your question. You stand, before the president, before all the camera’s carrying this feed live all over the world. You know that it was a pure fluke that got you in there to begin with, not likely to be repeated. You have nothing to lose. So you ask him, “Mr… President…”
It’d need a bit of work, but assuming there were television cameras capturing the moment:
"Mr. President, as we all know, this is an election year, and the race is currently very close between you and Mr. Kerry. In the four years of your administration, you’ve lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; you’ve lied about the ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden; you’ve lied about the costs of the Iraq war; you’ve lied about your determination to stop al Qaeda; you’ve lied about the number of available lines for stem cell research; you’ve lied about your tax cuts; you’ve lied about your Medicare plan; you’ve lied about your relationship with Ken Lay of Enron; you’ve lied about being fiscally responsible; you’ve lied about your National Guard service; you’ve lied about being a uniter, not a divider; you’ve lied about finding the causes behind the 9/11 attacks; you’ve lied about improving homeland security to prevent future attacks; you’ve lied about Administration authorization for prisoner abuse and torture in Iraq and Gitamo; and you’ve lied about restoring dignity to the White House.
“Given all this, why should anyone believe anything you have to say about your plans for a second term, or believe anything you say about your accomplishments in this term, or believe anything you say about your opponent?”
I know, I know, no chance in hell of getting even halfway through the first paragraph before Karl Rove’s goons bench-press me to the floor, but there it is…
Now that your daughters have graduated from college (congratulations, by the way), which branch of the military will they each be joining in order to help make the world a better place in Iraq?
“Mr. President, if there was a giant robot panda destroying Manhatten, and you were a giraffe with one special ability, would you pick your ability to be super strength or shooting lasers from your nostrils?”
That, or ask him about the next Harry Potter book.
'd repeat the question that didn’t get answered at the last press conference: “What’s been the biggest mistake of your presidency so far?”, and not sit down until I actually got an answer. I was so disappointed in him when he couldn’t think of an answer before- it would have been a great chance to showcase whatever shred of humanity he still possesses, and he completely blew it.
Either that, or I just want to see him squirm some more.
Since everyone else has the foreign relations front covered, I’ll ask a domestic policy question:
“Mr. President, what harm, specifically, would permitting homosexuals to marry do to our nation, and why isn’t this a matter to be left up to the individual states to decide?”
