20 Questions for the Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates

Despite all the media hyperbole, the President has little power to make changes in Washington. As such, candidates can lie themselves silly to appease the suckers, excuse me, voters and blame the lack of pre-election promise follow through on Congress.

The president is very much at the mercy of Congress and the Senate and the relationships he or she has there. The few direct weapons they have is veto power, a black budget (¡§off the books¡¨ expenditure), unfettered access to the media and the ability to declare war.

Asking Presidential candidates about the same issues election after election proves nothing except perhaps their answers validate some people¡¦s way of thinking. Let¡¦s get real, the questions we ask, the issues we quiz them on, have become boring and irrelevant. Let¡¦s scrub this useless litany forever but before we do let¡¦s recap them quickly.

"X Abortion ¡V a personal decision about a subject that was resolved thirty years ago.
"X Personal freedoms ¡V all are guaranteed by the constitution. Next.
"X Sex ¡V none of your business what I do in the bedroom as long as it doesn¡¦t involve children. Candidates please note
that your opinions on sexual mores have no affect whatsoever on young people or anyone else.
"X Taxes ¡V Yawn!
"X Economy ¡V the economy is dependant on the business community not the White House.
"X Personal morals ¡V vaguely interesting in the same sense as my interest in the President¡¦s choice of dog.
"X Use of drugs ¡V as long as they¡¦re clean now, I don¡¦t care.
"X Religion ¡V keep it to yourself.
"X Experience ¡V just about anyone can make a good President. The Presidency is an office into which the elected official
fits not the other way around.
"X Conservative ideals ¡V see Democrat*
"X Democrat ideals ¡V see Conservative*
* Chris Rock puts it well. We are all Conservative on some issues and Liberal on others. These labels are have become meaningless except to people who use them as a stick to beat those who disagree with them. One good rule of thumb that works for me; the more vocally conservative you are, the bigger the skeleton in the closet. And I stress 'closet.'

Now some real questions. Ground-rules: the candidate must know the answers to these. The answers have to be as direct as the question. Evasion results in a jolt of current through the genital 'truth circuit.' Answers must be 50 words or less. Ready?

1. Why are we in Iraq? The truth now.
2. Why isn¡¦t Iraq paying for its own ¡¥liberation?¡¦
3. How are we going to compensate the Iraqis who we have killed, wounded and displaced in our role as an
occupying force?
4. Why is the rest of the world not paying for the $3 trillion this ¡¥war¡¦ has and will cost the U.S.?
5. Who approved this expenditure of American¡¦s money?
6. Will you continue the Bush tradition of hiding visual recording and broadcast of our war casualties from the
U.S. public?
7. How long will it take to repay the debt created by the war?
8. Will you investigate punishing those who led us into Iraq under false pretences? (Rumsfeld for example)
9. As the future leader of the free world, what is your strategy to deal with the starving children of the world?
10. How about dealing with the poor and hungry here in the U.S.?
11. What will you do to reinforce and guarantee our Constitutional rights and freedoms especially those that have
been eroded since 2001?
12. Will you allow special interest groups and lobbyists to continue to exist and have access to you and congress during
your administration, keeping in mind that they didn¡¦t vote for you, we did?
13. What do you intend to do to fight corruption in Washington?
14. Will you continue to allow the use of mercenaries to support our armed forces?
15. Why not take the funds paid to private contractors and mercenaries and increase the pay of our soldiers so that they
don¡¦t have to supplement their income through food stamps?
16. What kind of transparency can we expect from your administration vs. the complete lack of same with the Bush
administration?
17. We already have universal healthcare in place as all hospitals and doctors are obliged to treat walk-ins on their own
dime. When will the Federal government repay the practitioners and health establishments for their efforts? How?
18. Will you seek Congressional approval before putting our Armed Forces in harms way?
19. Are we going to war with Iran? If so what¡¦s the budget, timeline and exit strategy?
20. How financially bankrupt is America?

Go ahead, ask. This is the only opportunity we'll get.