or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
October 26, 2006
Ask The White House (Seriously)
A particularly crumby aspect of our crumby country is the way the president essentially never has to answer the most basic questions.
Partly this is structural, in that there's nothing worse for your career at the Washington Post than asking such questions. But partly this is the fault of us, the teeming masses. There are enormous cracks in the structure we could take advantage of if we could merely get our crumby act together.
One person making an impressive effort in this area is Weldon Berger of the blerrk BTC News. He realized that, incredibly enough, it actually is possible for a blerkk to get someone in to White House press briefings. And he's done just that with BTC contributor Eric Brewer. Brewer has already gotten Tony Snow to demonstrate he did not know who John Yoo is. Best of all, Snow demonstrated this while wearily delivering a condescending lecture to Brewer about presidential signing statements.
SNOW: (Sigh) Look, I know this is part of my job as head coach of the New York Knicks, but it does get tiresome to have to explain the basics to people like you. Okay, here's how the game works: in basketball, each team has eight players. There's a "ball" made of balsa wood that's about the size of a Volkswagen. And every time you head it through the uprights your team gets 1000 points.
But now BTC News has taken it another step, and gotten a White House spokesman (not Snow) to commit to answering written questions on the record. And Weldon is asking for suggested questions right now. In other words, this is an opportunity for any regular schmoe with a good question to address it to the people who sort of run the world.
I'm going to suggest a few to Weldon myself as soon as I have a second to think about it, and I encourage you to do the same. We can't really complain about how sucky everything is without first pushing the limits of what's already possible.
Posted at October 26, 2006 10:37 AM | TrackBackMy question:
IF Bush believed saddam had [list all claimed wmd here] why did he give him a 48 hour warning?
Was there a bet in the white house if he would level tal Aviv or eliminate our troops first?
The question can be spiced up by include the CIA letter to congress where they say Saddam will only attack when pressured in the corner.
Posted by: Andy at October 26, 2006 11:56 AMI'd want to ask more environmental/domestic policy questions actually. . .
Posted by: Saheli at October 26, 2006 01:29 PMDo we really expect honest answers from this white house? Explain to me why this is a valuable exercise. Why wouldn't they just hire a team of people to spin answers?
To ask questions you need an honest broker at the other end.
Posted by: patience at October 26, 2006 01:52 PMExplain to me why this is a valuable exercise.
I agree they likely won't give any kind of answer to any question. But it's worth demonstrating this, I think, and done right the fact of their refusal could get wide circulation. I can imagine Weldon B. interviewed on Olbermann, for instance...which in turn might get blurrkists to dream a little bigger and might shame a few corporate reporters into pushing a little harder.
It's a measure of our horrible weakness that that's the very best we can expect -- but you start where you are with what you have.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at October 26, 2006 02:03 PMMaybe we can get a slate of bloggers elected to Congress in November, too, to demonstrate what it's like for the president to face real opposition.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko at October 26, 2006 05:19 PMHere's what I just posted at BTC:
Prior to invading Iraq, the U.S. ordered the UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq. Since no WMD’s have been found in Iraq, does the President regret not allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their job, which might have spared the costs to U.S. troops, Iraqi citizens, and the stability of the country?
Posted by: Lame Man at October 26, 2006 09:26 PMA two-part question for Tony Snow that will get a no-part answer:
Were you using some kind of new math when you stated that 750 challenges by George Bush is 'about equal' to the 140 challenges by Clinton and is your memory so short that you don't remember those accusations you made, alonq with Bill O'Reilly and Annie Coulter, that those abuses by Clinton would eventually lead to his taking control of the country by using the armed forces to stop the election in 2000 and declare martial law?
Just curious, Tony!
Posted by: JLaR at October 27, 2006 01:15 AMCan you please define reality?
Posted by: Jesus B. Ochoa at October 27, 2006 10:22 AMSorry, I forgot the word "again".
Posted by: Jesus B. Ochoa at October 27, 2006 10:23 AMBTC News seems like quite a find. Undoubtedly Betty the crow would be proud.
Posted by: Jonathan Versen at October 27, 2006 11:28 AMSaheli: I'd want to ask more environmental/domestic policy questions actually. . .
Go for it. I'd like that too. I think we had maybe three out of more than 100 suggestions on the blog and via email.
Lame Man: That's a fine question and one that a lot of people brought up at the time but hasn't seen much exposure since. I've been looking to see if it was asked and "answered," but no success yet.
patience: whether or not the answers are honest isn't really the point. My goals were 1) to open up the process a bit more, 2) get some good questions on the record regardless the responses and 3) ask the questions in such a way that non-responsive answers, if that's what we get, are clearly non-responsive. We'll see what happens, but at the very least we'll have established another precedent for going around the institutional press. I think there's merit in all of those, and if you look over what Eric's done in the press room I think you'll find that it's possible to get answers even when the respondent doesn't think he's answering.
Posted by: weldon berger at October 28, 2006 03:04 AMI have a follow-up to Lance Man's question. For context, I think the person arguing for war has the burden of proof. The armed forces continually run TV advertisments asking viewers like me to kill and die for the cause of our war in Iraq. Explain to me why I should, and what empirical goal I would be fighting for.
Posted by: hf at October 28, 2006 02:21 PMExplain to me why I should, and what empirical goal I would be fighting for.
Posted by hf at October 28, 2006 02:21 PM
If you haven't figured it out by now, hf, you will fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Have fun in Iraqistan!
Posted by: JLaR at October 29, 2006 11:49 PMQuite so. Hence the word "empirical".
Posted by: hf at October 31, 2006 01:23 PM
