In his first appearance since being (s)elected, George W. Bush will appear for the full hour on this Sunday’s Meet the Press. Last time Bush did the program in 1999, the program’s usually combative host Tim Russert had a warm, respectful one-on-one with then-candidate Bush. Let’s hope that gladiator Russert reappears this Sunday morning. For, as David Corn, points out in his weblog, “There is, of course, much to ask Bush about.”
Here’s what my questions would be if I were Tim.
1/ In a January 18th article, veteran Washington Post reporter David Broder quoted articles that appeared in the Boston Globe and the Dallas Morning News in 2000 showing that there was no evidence that you reported for duty with the National Guard during an eight-month stint in Alabama. Could you set the record straight?
Follow up: Although you were never penalized for failing to fulfill your Air National Guard duty for an extended period at the height of the Vietnam War, do you think your conduct casts doubt on your credibility as commander in chief?
2/ You have suggested in two different statements that we went to war because Saddam Hussein wouldn’t let weapons inspectors into Iraq. But between November 2002 and March 2003, UN inspectors headed by Hans Blix conducted 731 inspections. Did you misspeak? Are you misinformed?
Follow up: Last September, you told Brit Hume of Fox News that “the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.” Do you feel your top advisers have let you down by failing to provide you with accurate facts and objective information? Will you start reading newspapers, magazines–and which ones?
3/ In a major speech on Thursday, addressing the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, CIA director George Tenet said the intelligence community never told the White House that Iraq was an imminent threat to America. Yet you and key figures in your Administration issued repeated and unequivocal claims that war was necessary because Iraq posed an “imminent,” “immediate,” “urgent” and “mortal” threat. Why should the commission created to investigate intelligence failures exclude the role you and other senior officials may have played in abusing the facts?
4/ Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that he does not know whether he would have recommended an invasion of Iraq if he had been told it had no stockpiles of banned weapons. What is your view of your Secretary of State’s statement?
5/ Your former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill recounts that Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed concerns about the deficit–now estimated to reach $521 billion in fiscal year 2004–asserting: “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter. We won the midterm. This is our due.” Do you agree with the Vice President?
6/ Your most recent tax bill gives people who make over $1 million an average tax cut of more than $22,000; at the same time, it gives people making $35,000 per year a tax cut of $35. Paul O’Neill has reported that in cabinet discussions about your Administration‘s second tax cut, you asked, “Didn’t we already give them a break at the top?” What did you mean?
7/ How many men and women currently serve in the military? (Russert grilled Howard Dean about this.)
8/ Why are even Republican members of the 9/11 Commission complaining about being stymied in gaining access to vital intelligence information related to the attacks? Don’t you believe that Americans deserve to receive the fullest possible accounting of the attacks and whether they could reasonably have been prevented?
9/ Just this week, former State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler told a Congressional committee that America’s standing abroad had deteriorated to such an extent that “it will take us many years of hard, focused work” to restore it. What is your response?
10/ You recently cut back on the AIDS funding you promised to provide to Africa. Is this because you think the crisis there is getting better?
Bonus question: What are your views regarding “evolution”?
