I was reading this commentary by David Corn on some of the questions that should have been asked at Bush's first press conference. He put them into a humorous format and you can read the whole text at:
http://www.bushlies.com/
Wouldn't it be great if the media would ask truly hard hitting questions and quit softballing him?
Below the fold are some of the questions
Can you tell us why you have had far fewer press conferences than any president since Woodrow Wilson and the advent of the modern press conference? Your father, for instance, held 83 press conferences when he was president. As of this past June, you had held only 14. Are you afraid of coming before the media? Do you believe you have no obligation to do so? Is message control more important for you than the free flow of information?
What do you say about the fact that 49 percent of the electorate did not accept your leadership, your agenda, your issues, your priorities? Does that concern you? If the war in Iraq was so necessary, why does half the nation not see it that way? And are you concerned about all the reports of trouble with electronic voting on Election Day? Will you support establishing an independent, nonpartisan commission to set effective and national standards for voting and for verifying vote counts
Progress for all Americans? How will you do so for, say, gay and lesbian Americans? Will you continue to push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? Shortly before the election, you did say you support the notion of civil unions for gays and lesbians. Will you send legislation to Congress to establish civil union rights and employment protections for gays and lesbians? And if you believe this is a matter for states to decide, will you use the bully pulpit of the presidency to encourage your fellow Republicans in the states to craft and implement these protections? And while we're speaking of progress, during your first administration the number of Americans in poverty went up. Is there any reason to believe you will achieve more progress--or less failure--on this front in your second term
You've been talking about Social Security reform since the 2000 campaign. If this is such an important issue for you, can you tell us why you have yet to produce a specific proposal for change? Also, you have supported the idea of allowing younger workers to take some of their payroll tax out of the Social Security revenue stream and place those funds in other retirement accounts. But the transition costs for such a move will probably run between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. This point has been raised repeatedly. Why have you declined to say how you would cover these transition costs? How do you intend to make up for this gap?