A Question for each Candidate

SENATOR BIDEN

Clear- headed strategic thinkers, like Jim Webb, warned that the invasion of Iraq was an excursion into the stratosphere of wishful thinking. Why did you ignore those warnings and vote to authorize?

SENATOR CLINTON

President Reagan compensated for his cut and run from Beirut by crafting a policy of using Iraq to contain Iran and Hezbollah. Succeeding Presidents, including your husband, adhered to that policy. Why did you vote to reverse it?

SENATOR McCAIN

Counter-insurgency theory tells us that a high-level insurgency takes 30 years to defeat. Isn't the present surge - attempting to secure Baghdad - just the first belated move in a very long term struggle?

SENATOR EDWARDS

Given that so much of the Administration's case for war was dependent on the self-interested assertions of the embezzler Ahmad Chalabi and a defector code-named "Curveball," why did you discredit the countering assertions of Hans Blix?

SENATOR DODD

In the light of Enron and various other gigantic frauds, President Clinton's veto of the Securities Tort Reform Bill has proven very wise. Why did you lead the fight to override?

GOVERNOR GILMORE

Have you made a careful enough study of counter-insurgency theory (as Jim Webbs has done) to give your plans for victory in Iraq any credibility?

MAYOR GIULIANI

During the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, first responders were handicapped by the lack of inter-operability of radios. Why were they hampered with the same problem during the second attack 8 years later?

GOVERNOR HUCKABEE

How can you square a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 with the 4th verse of the 90th Psalm and the Second Book of Peter?

SENATOR BROWNBACK

Secular people view the Evangelical interpretation of the Book of Revelations as a gigantic death wish. Evangelical support of the war in Iraq looks like wish fulfillment to us. How can any of this be peddled as the Culture of Life?

CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH

How much spending on social programs can the economy absorb without destroying the dynamism of the free enterprise system?

CONGRESSMAN PAUL

How can huge corporations be prevented from using institutional power to pursue a Luddite policy of sabotaging advanced technologies, i.e. General Motors destruction of the electric car?

CONGRESSMAN TANCREDO

Are you truly counting on my white trash neighbor to pick the lettuce?

CONGRESSMAN HUNTER

A great American once described the Great Wall of China as "a monument in brick, stone and mud to a usually static point of view." Why should we invest in a monstrousity deeply offensive to President Reagan?

GOVERNOR RICHARDSON

The next President will inherit a pig's breakfast of a policy for the Korean peninsula. How can we counter the successful brinksmanship of Kim Il Jung?

SENATOR OBAMA

The next President will inherit a catastrophe in Iraq, something you warned us about. What's the use of being right when everyone else is wrong?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY

Given that the most activist Supreme Court Justice is Clarence Thomas and the least activist is Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee, will you appoint sensible moderates to the Court?

SENATOR GRAVEL

The Alaska delegation has proven the most gluttonous hogs at the trough. What will you do about pork barrel spending?

GOVERNOR THOMPSON

Is the compassionate Conservative extinct?

SENATOR THOMPSON

Would it be correct to assume that, since you think the policy President Bush has pursued in Iraq is "just about right," that we can look forward to more surges and neo-con adventures in the future?