ask away

I want to go to an "Ask President Bush" event. I have a lot of questions to ask him. Oh, wait, never mind--he just spends most of his time speechifying, and has time to answer only a few questions (mere minutes after an hour's worth of bloviation).

Sample passages:

When it came to funding our troops, we have a difference of opinion in this campaign. I put a supplemental up to the Congress in September of last year. It was money for body armor and spare parts, ammunition and fuel, that which is necessary when you've got people in combat both in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I want to thank the members of both political parties for their strong bipartisan support. We had great bipartisan support, so much so that only 12 United States senators voted against it, two of whom are my opponent and his running mate. (Applause.) It's an issue in this campaign. He -- when pressed, my opponent said, you know, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." It's kind of an interesting explanation. People around here are plain talkers. And then he went on, when pressed, to say, well, gosh, it was -- you know, I did the right thing, or he's proud of his vote, I think he said, and then, said "it's a complicated matter." Now, there's nothing complicated about providing for our troops in combat. I will continue to be a Commander-in-Chief who supports our troops. (Applause.)

He's right in one sense--it's not a "complicated" idea, that troops in combat need body armor. But Bush lives in a dream world. First off, when he sent troops to Iraq, they didn't have enough body armor. (This is the president, mind you, who can't think of even one mistake or error worthy of regret in his entire term of office.) Second, though, Kerry voted for a bill that would spend the $87 billion while simultaneously repealing part of Bush's tax cuts, and then voted against the bill with the tax cuts intact. You can't raise expenditures and cut taxes (hoping that the economy will magically--and quickly--take care of things), except in Bush-world. This is the same Bush who said (in this very press conference!), "My philosophy is that government meets priorities; once it meets its priorities, then the people can spend their money better than government can." Cutting the deficit, to Bush, just isn't a priority.

What is, then? How about North Korea--where Bush has practically handed Kim Jong-Il a blank check to produce nuclear weapons?

Just real quick, I believe freedom changes societies, and I believe a free society is a peaceful society. And therefore, it is in our national interests to promote a liberty in a part of the world that is full of hatred and resentment and intolerance. I talk about a dinner I had with Prime Minister Koizumi, and I think I talked about that today with some people on Air Force One, if I'm not mistaken. And anyway, so I'm having dinner with Koizumi, and we're talking about North Korea. See, I made the decision that no longer can we convince Kim Jung-Il to disarm if it's only the United States talking to the North Koreans. I felt it was important to bring other countries into the mix, like China and Japan and South Korea and Russia, so there's now five countries saying to the tyrant in North Korea, disarm, disarm.

And he's not listening--a fact Bush carefully ignores.

On second thought, I'd like to visit one of these question sessions just to meet the kind of people who flock to them, starting every question with "We're praying for you."

Q I'm a local youth minister, recently hired. And one of the things -- two of the things we've talked about today are enemies and freedom. And I believe that the enemy that we need the greatest freedom from right now happens to be Satan, and it's the enemy that we also don't necessarily always see. There's so many people who are being attacked on every level. A lot of those people are youth that are in our middle schools and our high schools. And I was just wondering how we can do more for faith-based initiatives for children, before they're drug addicts?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I appreciate you saying that. Look, well, first of all, it's for me to call upon people such as yourself to interface with children early, before it's too late. You answered the question by your actions. But in terms of reducing demand for drug -- you ask a specific issue on drug use, for example. We've got a collaborative effort with faith-based groups, community groups, neighborhood groups all aimed at sending the same message you're sending. And it's a kind of universal effort necessary to say to a child, drugs will destroy you. And it's working, frankly. We've reduced drug use by 11 percent in three-and-a-half years -- it's not "we," it's community groups have done so in three-and-a-half years. (Applause.)

I hope Bush will commit some kind of angelic shock troops to the war on Satan--er, drugs. And that 11 percent statistic? Utter bilge. Meth abuse is up. Nearly all drug trends are steady or increasing, especially the number of new users of marijuana. Which planet is Bush on--or from?