"What microinitiatives will you spend 2011-12 on? School uniforms?"
My experience in getting a straight answer out of a politician is that short, pointed, action questions are your best shot. Half the battle is getting the news media in attendance to pick up on your question/issue and soundbite it in their articles, anyway.
Asking if he feels "troubled" is an emotion question. Politicians love talking about their emotions, but it doesn't tend to lead anywhere productive, policy-wise. And the more general the question, the easier it is to weasel away.
Short and simple. Narrow is OK, obscure is not.
"What action do you intend to take to investigate the report in Harpers that three detainees at Guantanamo were murdered in 2006, and covered up as suicides?"
Smuggling assumptions like those in the question in 3 (that he's going to do anything at all) into your question is probably a good idea.
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
"When was the last time you cleaned a bathroom?"
Why isn't there a big media circus about how disastrous it is to have no one running anything?
In some cases (treasury, finance-related), I wonder if the administration doesn't mind the hold. Fully appointed, rather than acting, bureaucrats can get a bit too autonomous, IYKWIM. But this is what I was thinking way back in the spring, and I haven't been paying attention to what's going on with the nominees since then.
"What action do you intend to take to investigate the report in Harpers that three detainees at Guantanamo were murdered in 2006, and covered up as suicides?"
I'd go simpler and more direct: "What will you do to prevent a recurrence of the incident in 2006 in which three detainees at Guantanamo were tortured to death?"
The question in 3 is perfect and should have already been asked of Obama two dozen times this week.
togolosh,
My beef with your rewording of LB's question is that is begging for a glib answer.
"We're going to do everything we can do...to restore accountability... and blah blah blah...all the way up the chain of command... uh, America."
9: This is going to sound ridiculous, but I think 'tortured to death' actually lets them off the hook a bit. It gives rise to an image of an 'enhanced interrogation' where someone screws up, uses too much force, and the detainee accidentally dies.
But while that's plausible for one death as a time, I don't believe our torturers accidentally made the same mistake three times the same day. Three deaths in the same day might be one 'accidentally tortured to death', but it's at least two intentional murders.
I really wonder WTF was going on at "Camp No" and for how long. This was 2006 for fucks sake, and those three guys had been held for 5 years and couldn't possibly have anything useful to add. My only guess is it was some sort of revenge for the inmates hunger-striking, etc. and they figured no one would care if three Gittmo inmates "hung" themselves and no one would be held accountable, and so far they are correct. As Andrew Sullivan notes, nothing in the major papers on this other than an AP report buried in the WaPo.
I guess, what's a few extra-judicial murders by torture of helpless prisoners among friends?
"A transaction tax to on Wall St. trades would raise revenues, curb unproductive and dangerous financial behavior, and shrink fat cat bonuses. Would you be open to such a measure?"
"Why are you in Ohio on the day of the Massachusetts special election?"
13: My guess, and of course it's just a guess, is one detainee accidentally tortured to death, two murdered witnesses. (All three deaths are murder, of course, in that scenario, but with different states of mind.)
15: He's coming Friday.
No word yet on how questions will be selected, but if I get to raise my hand or write something on a card, I'm going with LB's question.
I'm weirdly giddy about the whole thing. I'm normally not an "ooh, ah a famous person" kind of guy.
Oh, this is for advanced tickets. I guess that makes more sense than what I was thinking.
I'm going to go with either "Where's my fucking pony?" or "On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being 'as serious as a heart attack' and 1 being 'Ha ha ha ha,' how seriously do you take the netroots?"
17: If they get to preview the questions, I'm guessing they aren't going to pick that question. If you really want to get your question chosen you should either ask about healthcare ("Why do you think the Republicans are so determined to prevent Americans from getting better healthcare?") or else you could ask a question about how Sasha and Malia are doing at taking care of Bo.
3 is a great question. Witt's advice is excellent. The questions in th OP are WAY too open-ended, as is Togolosh's unfortunate reworking of 3.
Be as specific as possible. Make sure your question is leading. Leave as little wriggle room as possible. You are trying to get a professional master of question-evading to provide information, not start a seminar discussion. Most journalists are terrible at asking tough questions, and Congresspeople are worse.
"Why do you insist on making Bob cry?"
I was going to suggest something like 3. 9 is a mistake as it allows Obama to evade the question by disputing the premise.
11,12 - I see your point. The phrasing of 3 is superior.
If they get to review the questions, no question worth asking will be asked.
How about "What was the last earworm you got? It was "Ohio" by Neil Young, wasn't it?"
C'mon, let's be seriously tendentious:
American officials have been murdering prisoners - at Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and apparently even letting immigrants die of neglect in prisons here in America. Your predecessor lied and tried to sweep it all under the rug, blaming a few bad apples for what was official policy. When will we see all the guilty tried an punished, and justice done?
I was just interviewed for German television. The microphone said WDR#1. I have no idea if I looked as nervous as a felt. Having someone put a microphone in your face and asking you to represent your region is nerve wracking. They wanted to know what Ohio thought of the president's performance. I talked about the benefit stimulus money had brought our college. Then they asked how I judged the president, and I said he ran as a centrist has has been governing as one, no matter what those on the right may think. They asked what question I would ask the president, and I said I'd ask about the Harper's article.
"Mr. President, are you troubled by the allegations [fact?] that Goldman Sachs short sold mortgaged backed securities, and this is part of why they weathered the financial crisis? If you are troubled, how does this effect your policies toward executive compensation."
This sort of question is incomprehensible to the average person. Things like "do you support requiring home buyers to put at least 5% down?" or "do you support limiting the rate of interest that can be charged on credit card balances to 24% a year?" are at least understandable.
"Mr. President, I had to submit my question in advance, where it was subjected to who knows what screening for acceptability before it was determined that it was fit to be asked here. Why are you afraid of the voice of the people?"
3
Ask for a back issue of Harpers for Xmas/Kwanzaa.
15-17
Will it blow your anonymity to have Barry yield the floor to Prof. Chalk ?
13 -- My uninformed theory is that the interrogations were about prison life, not anything on the outside. Actually, I shouldn't really use the word 'interrogation' since I think acquisition of information was likely not the main goal. Like all the people who want to waterboard the Underpants Bomber, having formed that opinion with no information at all about what he's already told authorities, what evidence they have, what it is that the authorities don't know about the plot (and what a guy in the UB's position would be likely to know). Punishment is a big part of the appeal.
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(probably not a good question for presidential question)
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Halford, I asked Ed Markey a question about healthcare, specifically asking him whether he would support opening the exchanges to people with employer-based insurance so that they wouldn't have to switch insurance every time they switched jobs, and he ducked the question like 5 times--even though I was given opportunities to follow up and repeatedly said. That's not my question, what I'm asking is...
i'm not sure theres clarity on what one is attempting to accomplish with the Q&A session.
trick obama into committing publicly to a good action?
convince fellow townhall goers that your question framing reflects something true?
get obama to see people really care about something?
only the third seems very plausible. opinions?
Feeling sick to my stomach tonight. I always felt that what ever craziness went on in the rest of the country, at least I lived in Massachusetts, an oasis of sanity. Tonight I read comments posted in local news sites by people who live here (not the tea baggers imported from out of state, of which there are many, by the Brown campaign), that shocked me in both it's vitriol and it's shocking disrespect toward Ted Kennedy. This country is headed down the shitter. Here is my prediction for 2012:
A win for Palin/Brown. Mark my words. Our family will be selling our home and leaving the country.
If you want to continue to have any respect for humanity, then never read the comments posted in local news.
My only other feasible option, Fleur, is Canada, and outside of Montreal the Maritimes (where there are no jobs), I don't really like the place.
Let's start working on a new candidate for 2012 now.
i wonder what the worst site:comment quality is. i mean, sure stormfront has terrible comments, but you sort of expect it. youtube is abominable even though the site is one of the most important on the interweb
in Massachusetts, an oasis of sanity
That, prior to Patrick in 2007, hadn't elected a Democratic governor in 16 years.
i'm not sure theres clarity on what one is attempting to accomplish with the Q&A session.
I think of it as an efficient combination of writing a letter to your congresscritter and writing a letter to your local newspaper. Both provide small but real pushes toward action.
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Terminate all self abuse in respect of Robert B Parker. Scott Brown does not represent a good trade.
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I'd go with the AIG question in the post.
|| I just found out that Andrew Gr/e/ne the son of storied U of C prof. David Gr/e/ne (famous for his translations of ancient Greek literature -- my favorite being a pitch-perfect Herodotos) died in the UN building in Haiti. Sad. |>
Feeling sick to my stomach tonight. I always felt that what ever craziness went on in the rest of the country, at least I lived in Massachusetts, an oasis of sanity.
I woke up feeling kind of like I did after the 2004 election. Like a combination of wanting to punch half the voters, disbelief that we picked the wrong direction at a crucial crossroads, and that sick feeling.
and that sick feeling.
That's the feeling I get whenever I see the letters 'AIG'.
On the bright side, General Franco is still dead.
But stock in Franco Liquidation is going for a robust 75 cents on hopes that he can be made a zombie.
52: Which is ironic, since Zombie Franco already served two terms as Vice President of the United States.
Which, come to think of it, means that Judge Garzon totally has jurisdiction and we shouldn't nuke France.
47, 50: Here is his obit from the Trib. He's an Irishman to the Irish Times and a native Chicagoan to the Trib -- both are true.
I woke up feeling kind of like I did after the 2004 election.
There's that, but there's also the 2000 election, where my supposed political allies tried to minimize what was at stake.
i wanted to punch people last night. i am doing some temping in a tax return place, and this single mother & waitress came in. At the end, there was some question where she thought her return was larger than expected. Teh russian guy filling out her return starts telling her it wasn't from obama's stimulus, it was from bush's tax cuts. and that her taxes were going to go up in the future, because of health care, the war, and the deficit. i didn't say anything, as telling your manager he doesn't know anything/is lying about what he does professionally is probably a bad idea, especially in front of a few customers.
i wanted to punch people last night. i am doing some temping in a tax return place, and this single mother & waitress came in. At the end, there was some question where she thought her return was larger than expected. Teh russian guy filling out her return starts telling her it wasn't from obama's stimulus, it was from bush's tax cuts. and that her taxes were going to go up in the future, because of health care, the war, and the deficit. i didn't say anything, as telling your manager he doesn't know anything/is lying about what he does professionally is probably a bad idea, especially in front of a few customers.