Mr. President: Peter David from www.peterdavid.net. In the past you have repeatedly criticized “activist judges” who have been, in your opinion, playing fast and loose with the Constitution in order to further their own agendas. Yet you, who twice took an oath to protect the Constitution, signed into law a historic curtailing of habeas corpus that many are decrying as blatantly unconstitutional. Would it therefore be reasonable to accuse you of being an “activist president?”
PAD
UPDATE FROM GLENN, 9/26: Apparently, Betty The Crow News is collecting questions for their reporter to ask Tony Snow. Feel free to click here and cross-polinate.
• 
How do you respond to accusations that you are the worst president in the entire history of the united states?
A follow up: There are rumors you resemble a chimpanzee in a suit. Your response?
yesss first post.
dont know much about american politics but check out alex jones at prisonplanet.com
Bill
dámņ, guess i’m just too slow. ahh well second post will have to do
Bill
Mr. President… A concerned tax payer here. Will you ever order the Government Accounting Office to do a full audit on the Pentagon’s books to find out who has been profiteering illegally and immorally off of this war?
Mr President, Budgie Barnett from the Times of London. If the Republicans do badly in the coming mid-term elections, what do you think would the reason why?
How can you sleep?
Kathy Pearlman here. Can you explain why people in private planes, such as, say, Air Force One, do not have to go through any sort of security outside the one that surrounds them?
Mr. President: Your predecessor, Bill Clinton, was impeached for lying about a consensual sexual relationship. Your Republican colleagues, at that time, said that a president who lied was unworthy of office. You lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and in so doing led the country into a bloody and costly war that has made the U.S. less safe, not more. Isn’t it, therefore, your moral duty as a Republican to resign?
Can you confirm the Vice President predict that changes to the Constitution will be greeted by voters as liberation?
Why do liberal activist bloggers insist protecting the Constitution? Haven’t they been arguing for change for the past several months and years? If the Constitution isn’t “upgraded” will the terrorists win?
— Ken from Chicago
Mr. President, can you confirm you are enhancing your presidential powers after being inspired by the hexology novel series PSI-MAN?
— Ken from Chicago
Mr. President, Aaron Thall from the Reynoldsburg Gazette… Your policy of “staying the course” in Iraq is clear, but I was wondering if it extends to the soldiers on the ground walking directly into mine fields.
If that is the case, is there anything you wish to say to the families of soldiers kileld ina ction, or are you merely waiting for their extra lives to kick in so they can fight once again?
Well, for starters, the President is the Chief Executive. “Activist President” is actually a pretty fair description.
Next up, the WMDs: 1) Many have been found — poison gas artillery shells have been found by the hundreds, if not thousands. And if you don’t count those, then there’s the argument that a lie presumes intent, and right up until the invasion EVERYONE said Saddam had WMDs — Democrats, Republicans, and other nations. Saddam was playing his little bluff, and had it called.
The meeting with the families: Bush has been doing that right along, including Cindy Sheehan. She’s so pìššëd because she can’t have a second one where she’ll tell him she wishes she could go back in time and kill him while he was an infant.
Air Force One is NOT a private plane. It is owned and operated by the United States Air Force. Their security is considerably HIGHER than civilian planes.
I’m no Bush shill, but those three points annoyed me.
J.
Mr. President, could you please define “freedom?”
Mr. President. Miles Vorkosigan, Vorbarr Sultana Star-Tribune. You have recently stated that you will stay in Iraq as long as you have any support at all. I believe you said that as long as your wife and your dog supported you, you would keep troops in Iraq.
Isn’t the support of the people more important to your decision, and aren’t you really keeping those troops in place to defend the property of the oil barons who bought you the Presidency in the first place?
And why did you invade Iraq when 18 of the 19 9-11 hijackers were Saudis? Shouldn’t we have declared war on Saudi Arabia?
Hello, Mr. President. Luigi Novi, Union City Reporter. Given your stated disdain for books, and the fact that you married a librarian, how exactly did you conceive two children without bursting into flame?
Mr. Bush,
Why should we care what you say in answer to any of our questions anymore when you answer by:
A) Answering the questions you wish we had asked rather then the ones we have actually asked you.
B) Answering with pre-scripted non-answers designed to further White House talking point propaganda more then enlighten or inform the public or actually answer the question.
or
C) Answering by flat out lying to the questioner, the press and the American people on a regular bases?
Idiotpresidentsays”what”??
Mr. President, what exactly is your secret that has made it so easy to pull the wool over the eyes of so many, such as Mr. Jay Tea above?
Mr.Bush, El Hombre Malo from some-foreighn-media-you-will-surely-label-as-AlJazeera…:
How do you justify european countries with skimpier security budget are able to detain terror suspects before and after their attacks, and still grant them their civil rights?
How do you justify the state department blockade to every request from terror case judges in europe to interrogate terror suspects held in Guantanamo? Is that your idea of cooperation?
Mr. President: Tim Lynch, formerly of Usenet Press. Can you name three rights enshrined in the Constitution that you would consider TRULY inviolable, even if they happened to be inconvenient in terms of you being able to get what you want?
TWL
What have I got in my pocket?
Mr President, Ðìçk Fitzwell, Albuquerque Daily Fishwrap, how far do you really think you would have gone if you didn’t have the preturnatural ability to turn so many of your opponents into raving kooks? Is it some kind of mutant power or just a voodoo spell? Did you steal it from Bill Clinton?
Follow up question: Helen Thomas or Madeleine Albright? Death is not an option.
Mr. David, humor is all well and good, but what are you, personally, doing to help take back Congress in next month’s elections? You do a lot of kvetching about politics but I can’t recall that you’ve ever directed readers toward a candidate’s website, encouraged them to register to vote, offered to match their contributions to a particular campaign, etc.
Mr. President, what will be the first thing you do to further advance your conservative agenda when, in spite of repeated lies and biased reporting, the Republicans maintain their control over both houses of Congress?
Iowa Jim
Jess Willey, The Gaithersburg Gazette,: Did you advocate ‘No Child Left Behind’ because of how obviously your own childhood education failed you? I was watching the Daily Show a few weeks ago and I need an explaination on how the President of Pakistan having a better command of the English language than you do.
mr bush,
when i drink beer and eat curry i pass wind more powerful than any wmd known. should i expect to be invaded or hired?
Craig, I can cite sources for all three items I mentioned. If you are rejecting those fundamental realities (700+ poison gas artillery shells found, Cindy Sheehan met with President Bush in June 2004 (after which she said he was “. . .sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. . . I know he’s sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he’s a man of faith,”), and Air Force One is a United States Air Force VC-25A assigned to the Presidential Airlift Group of the 89th Airlift Wing), then you’re pulling wool over your own eyes.
There’s enough crap to slam Bush over without just making crap up.
J.
I’ve never heard the 700 shells figure before. Is this the Santorum 500 plus a couple of a hundred? The general, almost immediate consensus was that the Santorum 500 were old shells from the Iraq/Iran war, and not weapons of mass destruction being held for use of the kind that the Bush admininstration built its claims around.
It’s sort of like University Security crashing a dorm room hoping to find big bags of dope and discovering some THC had soaked into the wood of the window frame 10 years ago.
Or, as President Bush himself put it in 2004:
“The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.”
Jay Tea: Next up, the WMDs: 1) Many have been found — poison gas artillery shells have been found by the hundreds, if not thousands.
Luigi Novi: We don’t go to war over gas shells. We went to war over allegations that he was developing nuclear weapons to use against the U.S.
Jay Tea: And if you don’t count those, then there’s the argument that a lie presumes intent, and right up until the invasion EVERYONE said Saddam had WMDs — Democrats, Republicans, and other nations. Saddam was playing his little bluff, and had it called.
Luigi Novi: Based on questionable intelligence that the Bush administration presented as legitimate.
Pontifex: Mr. David, humor is all well and good, but what are you, personally, doing to help take back Congress in next month’s elections? You do a lot of kvetching about politics but I can’t recall that you’ve ever directed readers toward a candidate’s website, encouraged them to register to vote, offered to match their contributions to a particular campaign, etc.
Luigi Novi: Perhaps Mr. David sees not directing people toward a particular candidate as a good thing, since that’s never been the role of this blog, which is for him to voice his feelings and opinions, and not as a shill for politicians. As for registering to vote, perhaps he knows that those interesting enough to read his political blog entries are already registered to vote and do vote.
Mr. President, Bill Myers, former professional journalist. Most questions asked of you thus far (not all, but most) have been based on the over-the-top premise that you are more evil than the Anti-Christ, and have inadvertantly drowned out the tough questions that people should be asking.
A couple of people have attempted to provide balance. Unfortunately, they unwittingly acted in the role of apologist instead, tossing you softball questions. They apparently believe that if over-the-top liberals criticize you, all criticisms of you are over-the-top. This is called the fallacy of the syllogism. Another example of the syllogism is the erroneous assertion that if all apples are red, all things that are red are apples.
I am afraid I am going to inconvenience you by asking you a truly difficult question.
Mr. President, every assumption and prediction you’ve made thus far about Iraq has turned out to be wrong. Iraq did not have a stockpile of WMDs large enough to be a credible threat, we have not been welcomed as liberators, the newly created Iraqi government is not by any objective measure making substantial progress towards taking responsibility for its own national security, and Iraq has descended into civil war. In light of the failure of your policies thus far, how do you justify your continued resolve to “stay the course?”
Moreover, Mr. President, would you clarify what it means to “stay the course?” In other words, does your over-arching strategy of democratizing Iraq allow for adjustments in tactics to reflect the reality on the ground? Or are you asserting that you will continue to employ the same tactics, even if those tactics have by every objective measure failed to achieve the results you’ve promised they would?
If you are going to stick with current tactics, what gives you reason to believe those tactics will ultimately succeed? Why have you ignored the advice of military experts? Do you believe historical precedent and military doctrines are inapplicable to Iraq? If so, why?
(Stepping outside of the hypothetical game for the moment, I was a journalist for two years, in case anyone is wondering. I’m not saying that in any way gives me a leg up on anyone here. It’s been more than ten years since I was a paid professional reporter. Just thought some of you might be curious.
(And yes, I know, I’d never get the chance to ask George W. Bush such a long, multi-part question with such a verbose pre-amble. But, y’know, it’s a “fantasy press conference,” so I went to town.)
Mr. President, Bill Myers, former journalist, here again. I forgot to ask you the toughest and most pressing question of all: what the hëll happened to my other blue sock? I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find it.
Mr. President, what exactly is a “cotton-pickin minute”?
Mr President, if the US legal system is the best in the world, can you tell us why it can’t cater for people you allege to be terrorists but then can’t seem to find any evidence that would stand up in your own continental courts? Oh, and a supplementary, will you instruct the military to help find the US soldiers accused of deliberately killing UK journalist Terry Lloyd and hand them over to UK jurisdiction for trial?
A fair description… of hypocrisy.
Yes, expired, from before 1991, when Saddam Hussein ended his WMD program.
What bluff? Bush insisted Saddam allow inspectors, Saddam relented, and Bush turns around and says that isn’t good enough anymore, we’re invading.
As for “EVERYONE said Saddam had WMDs” — WTF is that? Judy Miller of the NY Times cites the White House that Saddam has a nukular weapons program, and Sunday morning Ðìçk Cheney is citing the NYT Saddam has a program.
When it is revealed that you LIED, saying “you believed it!” is quite the chickensh-t.
Families… like Pat Tillman’s? Who found out after the 2004 election he wasn’t killed fighting insurgents as the army reported? But was instead killed by the American soldiers he was waving to?
Oh, dámņ, we almost had Jay Tea. We almost pulled the wool over his eyes. W-T-F-ever. Tell it to the George Bush portrait tattooed on your ášš.
Oh, wait, the thread is questions to Bush: “Mr President, your supporters remind me of a høøkër stabbing a guy for stopping her pimp from beating her. It makes bystanders wonder, ‘why protect the scumbag?’ Mr President, why do these people persist in defending you?
It’s pronounced nuclear. Noo-klee-er. Not nookyaler. … Say it with me now, “Nu-cle-ar”.
… In light of the failure of your policies thus far, how do you justify your continued resolve to “stay the course?”
This one has an answer! bush now claims that “We’ve never been stay the course”
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-lied-today-saying-weve-never-been.html
Posted by: Mike at October 22, 2006 08:38 PM
Oh, wait, the thread is questions to Bush: “Mr President, your supporters remind me of a høøkër stabbing a guy for stopping her pimp from beating her. It makes bystanders wonder, ‘why protect the scumbag?’ Mr President, why do these people persist in defending you?
Mike, as my girlfriend’s father likes to say, “Often it is your allies who embarrass you the most.”
I believe George W. Bush is an appallingly awful president. Comparing him to a pimp beating up a høøkër, however, is an analogy without substance.
Moreover, comparing George W. Bush’s supporters to a høøkër stabbing someone is simply inflammatory for the sake of being inflammatory. If you have a specific criticism to make — preferably one that can be backed up by logic — then make it. If not, don’t try to cover it up with over-the-top insults, because that’s not that hard to see through.
And yeah, I did lecture a couple of Bush supporters about what I perceived to be a flaw in their logic. If they believe it is my logic that is flawed and they want to say so, I welcome their response. I’ll engage them in a rational debate rather than just hurling insults at them, because doing the latter is tantamount to saying, “I got nothin’ so I’m just going to shout at you.”
Paper or plastic?
Mr. President: people have accused you of being electronically wired during debates and press conferences.
I have the magician James “The Amazing” Randi here. Will you grant him full access to your debate and press preparation, so that those charges can be evaluated by a professional?
Jon, would that be the same debate where John Kerry was caught on film taking notes out of his pocket, in direct violation of the agreed-upon debate rules? (http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/001054.php).
And I gotta wonder about that picture — there have been other pictures showing Bush with a similar bulge in his back. (See http://www.jalopnik.com/cars/standards/) I’m thinking body armor.
If I was in charge of wiring Bush for the debate, I sure as hëll wouldn’t put the receiver between his shoulder blades, the part of the back that sticks out the most. I’d tuck it in the hollow of his back, where his coat would help conceal it.
J.
I’m not covering anything up. Peter can pull up my email anytime he wants, so I’m not living in hiding.
When I was a kid, the smurfs were a popular cartoon. They used the word “smurfy” as a multiple-meaning adjective. It was annoying.
No, what I’m saying isn’t open to multiple interpretations, and I’m sorry I’m not “smurfy” enough for you.
Just because you don’t like my logic, that doesn’t mean I’m not logical.
Mike: Under the terms of Saddam’s 1991 surrender, he had to account for and destroy all his existing stocks of WMDs. He didn’t. Not abiding by the terms of one’s surrender is grounds for resuming hostilities.
J.
Not abiding by the terms of one’s surrender is grounds for resuming hostilities.
I was wondering how long it would take for this one to be pulled from out of the compost pile.
The thing is: Bush has used any dozen reasons as to why we went to war in Iraq.
The original one? Saddam had WMD that he had been building SINCE 1991, including nukes.
Not before 1991. You know, the ones we gave him to fight Iran and all.
Since 1991.
Saddam did not build them. He didn’t ship them over the border to Syria. He. Did. Not. Have. Them.
Don’t give us this “resuming hostilities” bs. Talk about a joke of an excuse. You’ve still got some layers of wool to remove.
Posted by: Mike at October 22, 2006 09:31 PM
I’m not covering anything up. Peter can pull up my email anytime he wants, so I’m not living in hiding.
I didn’t say you were covering up your locale, nor did I exhort you to reveal it. I was simply saying that an inflammatory remark is not good enough to cover up the lack of a logical argument.
Posted by: Mike at October 22, 2006 09:31 PM
No, what I’m saying isn’t open to multiple interpretations, and I’m sorry I’m not “smurfy” enough for you.
Mike, what you said lacked any substantive, interpretable content whatsoever. If you want to discuss it, please explain exactly how George W. Bush is analagous to a pimp beating up a høøkër, and how Bush’s supporters are analagous to said høøkër stabbing a would-be savior. If you can’t lend substance to the analogy then it is by definition a substanceless analogy. I didn’t invent that problem any more than I invented the rain or the sky.
And there was nothing “Smurfy” about my response to you. My criticisms of your argument were more than adequate in their specificity. It is your response that has lacked substance. You can “Smurf” me all you want but it will not change that simple fact.
Posted by: Mike at October 22, 2006 09:31 PM
Just because you don’t like my logic, that doesn’t mean I’m not logical.
Mike, that is an utterly vapid defense, because I did far more than say, “I don’t like your logic.” I pointed out the incontrovertible fact that you have not backed up your inflammatory analogy with one iota of substance. That is by definition illogical. I didn’t invent that problem any more than I invented rain or the sky.
If you want to be acknowledged as being a rational and logical person, simply provide some substance. Explain your premises and how you feel they lead to your conclusions. That is the essence of logic.
Mr. Bush, Bill Myers, former journalist, yet again.
During the 2000 campaign, you told Americans you wanted to help “put food on your family.”
So, I ask you: where the hëll is that capicola on wheat bread sub with provolone, Italian dressing, sweet peppers, lettuce, tomato, and onions that I asked you to put on my head? I’m still waiting, you know.
In 2004 you & your supporters kept saying “you don’t change presidents during a war”, you you & your administration keep telling us that the war will last years, even (to quote Cheney) generations. Since your term is due to end in 2 years, how do you plan to resolve this contradiction?
Craig: Kindly cite specific examples to back up your point. I actually went back to Bush’s speeches and statements, and the actual focus of them were freeing the Iraqi people, bringing democracy to the Middle East, and ending Saddam’s support for terrorism (recall the 25K the families of Palestinian suicide bombers were getting from the Iraqi government).
Also, on the WMDs, the burden of proof was NOT on Bush. It was on Saddam, to PROVE that he had no WMDs, no WMD programs, no WMD materials. He reapeatedly cheated and lied and evaded on that.
Bill Myers: I’d either missed or forgotten that one. But I’m still giggling over his lamenting that thousands of OB-GYNs can no longer “practice their love with their patients.”
As far as “nuculer” goes… that one drives me nuts, too. But Jimmy Carter says it that way, too, and he really was a nuculer engineer in the Navy. If a guy who used to run nuculer reactors says it that way, I guess it ain’t that bad…
J.
Jon, I have an answer for you and Mr. Randi, but it’s stuck in moderation limbo.
J.
I’m sorry, Jay, but what was the point of you saying you aren’t a Bush shill?
I’m not even saying you are a Bush shill. But when you say statements that no weapons were found bother you, and Luigi says “We don’t go to war over gas shells,” and then you come back and reserve our right to invade Iraq over gas shells — when Bush trades away the integrity of the US for pennies (gas shells!) on the dollar (feeding the insurgency by invading an oil-rich Muslim country that was no threat to the US) — why shill for Bush then say you aren’t a Bush shill?
I haven’t been following the pattern of your political statements, Bill, but now I’m thinking I touched a nerve with you. I mean, I still think you like things all nuanced and smurfy, but now I think I’ve touched a nerve. But if you want me to expand on my analogy:
Well, there was the support from the middle class Bush received in the last election. Bush’s record in his first term was to trade away middle-class saving, by cutting taxes for the rich during wartime.
There was retooling medicare to give away $1.2 trillion to drug companies by lying about the cost — going so far as to count the years the plan would not be implemented in averaging its cost.
There’s pretending to be a good-old-boy when he was born and educated a yankee (Connecticut, Philips in Andover, Yale, Harvard).
Who’s being incendiary, the guy liquidating middle-class savings to give to the rich, or the guy driving the point home that poor people who support him are being cheated? Is “scumbag” not strong enough a word for you?
Mike, it is silly to assume that merely because someone disagrees with you, or criticizes your logic (or lack thereof), you have “touched a nerve” with that person. Sometimes people disagree with you because, well, they don’t agree with you.
I think you have done a slightly better job of fleshing out your argument. I agree with you that many of Bush’s policies have favored the rich at the expense of the middle class.
You are, however, making a somewhat simplistic argument that omits certain key facts. The Tax Relief Act of 2001 increased the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is a refundable tax credit for low-income wage earners. (A “refundable tax credit” is, in IRS parlance, a tax credit that can exceed the amount of tax you actually paid. It is referred to as a “refund” but this is deceptive. Typically, anyone benefiting from the Earned Income Tax Credit receives a “refund” that exceeds their Federal withholdings.)
In addition, the act increased the Child Tax Credit from $500 to $600 in 2001, and will increase it to $1,000 in 2010. The Child Tax Credit benefits the middle class as much as it does anyone else.
On the whole, I believe Bush’s fiscal policies provide more benefit to the rich than they do to anyone else. But to call him a “scumbag” when he has indeed provided tax relief to the poor and middle class is a bit over-the-top. He may have provided more relief to the rich than to anyone else, but that’s in no way analogous to a høøkër-beating pimp.
What’s truly irresponsible is that he’s cut taxes on anyone during war-time. A ballooning national debt is bad for the overall economy because it means the government is competing with private industry for capital. Moreover, the interest on our public debt eats up domestic productivity.