This perhaps drew winces in every living room in America. But it did inspire me to consider how a structured forum for questions & answers can offset some of the better-known deficiencies of press conferences. I wrote it up in a proposal called the Question Scoreboard. This page is a sampling board for questions for the President and the 2004 campaign.
What makes a good question? Good question. In the press conference there were some good informational questions (“Who will we hand Iraq over to?”), as well as the necessary questions about hard choices (“How do justify going to war without asking Americans to sacrifice to pay for it?”) which still haven’t been answered. There may be a temptation to come up with the “gotcha” questions like “Are you sure that’s oxygen you’re breathing?”, but I do believe there’s value in keeping this serious. And I want questions that you would pose to John Kerry as well. It’s even better if you can cite an expert who’s been pressing the issue for a long time.
If you are a registered member, you can add questions below and/or use the ViewPoints technology to debate the utility of individual questions. I’ve started with one below.
Update December 6th: George W. Bush having been re-elected, I expect these questions to remain open, and to add more to them. Ron Froomkin, writing in Salon, proposed some strategies for the press to adopt in asking questions of the President.
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