Potemkin Village Watch

A new feature here at TCR. As long as the Grand Ole Opry is the most hostile territory into which President Bush ventures, and questions about Laura Bush's political aspirations are among the most challenging he takes from an audience, this space will chronicle the ongoing absurdity of it all.

During his visit to Florida, President Bush spoke at the Port of Tampa. Here are the questions that confronted the president in the order in which the "unscripted" and "unscreened" audience asked them:

1. Mr. President, I just wanted to take an opportunity to tell you I think our country is blessed to have you as our President. We are very thankful that you don't make your decisions based on the polls, like previous Presidents have. And my comment is, is that I'm a homebuilder. I'm very happy right now. But I wanted to just keep you apprised that things are good now, the economy is good, interest rates are low. There are people that still can't afford homes in our country today. Affordable housing is very important. We, as homebuilders -- I served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Homebuilders. We'll be up in Washington in about a month or so to see you guys. But we're concerned with the environment just as much as anyone else is, and -- but there's got to be a balance to make sure that we can develop land and provide homes -- affordable homes. And also Congress is working on some things now that has an effect on financing and interest rates for people buying their first homes. And let's make sure that we have affordable homes for people. My daughter is a school teacher here in Tampa, and it's important to people like her, people that protect us -- the fire department, the sheriffs, they need homes. The times are good now, and I was a builder when your friend, Jimmy Carter, was President, and interest rates weren't so good back then, and those were tough times. And I just want to tell you that I'm blessed to be here today with you in this room, and we all love you. (Applause.)

2. Mr. President, you mentioned a trip next week to visit the sources of renewable additional technology to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We have a not-so-renewable resource, which is our precious Florida coastline. And because of your great brother, we do have an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent. How can you work with us to protect our Florida shoreline with respect to offshore drilling?

3. I'm from Winter Garden in the central part of the state. Pressed into service by your brother, Honorable Jeb Bush. I thought about calling him to ask him if he'd like to have the job back. The concerns from the central part of the state is, we've got a really unprecedented growth rate there in the middle part. The challenge is for mass transportation to free us from the oil that you talk about. Unfortunately, the proportionate share of funding that we're able to secure seems to be tied into pork barrel like light rail, which -- Congressman Mica needs to buy into the fact that it's not realistic. So how do we get free from that so we can get direct funding for mass transit?

4. Mr. President, welcome back to Tampa. And my question is, you've talked a lot about our addiction to oil today. You've also talked about advanced alternative fuel sources, in particular for household vehicles as a potential mitigant to that dilemma. But we have a very robust industrialized economy -- air, rail, shipping, trucking -- that has depended on oil, frankly, for generations to be successful and vibrant. So my question is, how do we maintain the most advanced industrialized economy on Earth, and actually reduce our dependency on oil going forward?

5. It seems to me that we are facing in this country -- I've had the opportunity to interface with people of Muslim countries, and the war is bad enough, and I applaud what you're doing, because freedom is important, but what concerns me is if the youth in these nations are being taught that you and I and us Americans are, in fact, the devil incarnate, or Satan, himself -- I guess my question is, what can we do about that, to win over the people, the children, the youth, so that the next generation will not be facing the same dilemma? I think this is an incredible problem.

6. I know that you and First Lady Bush have talked much about our hurting generation of teens and our unproductive teens in our communities. Just wanted you to talk a little bit about the efforts being made with the work that you're doing in initiatives that will help that.

7. Mr. President, it's an honor to be here with you today, and I thank you so much for the time that you take to share with us. I'm a 40-year-old father of a three-year-old. And I'm also an adopted child. And it seems that, anymore, through the results of legislation from the bench, that maybe the unsafest place for a child in this country is in his or her mother's womb. And my question for you is -- and I commend you for your Supreme Court picks. I thank you for your bold stance in who you picked -- (applause) -- my question is, with my son, this is the future of America. And my question is, where do you believe we're headed? Long after your term of serving us has ended, long after we've had other Presidents serve this country, where do you think we're headed in the areas of abortion, the areas of traditional marriage, in the areas of faith and the foundations that this country was founded upon that are so under attack anymore? Where do you believe we're going?

8. Thank you for being our President. We are all way better off and very safe. We appreciate it. How do you -- earlier you shared with us some intimacy about how you make decisions, and I felt that was heartfelt. How do you keep it together? What do you really think about when the biggest story this week was Dick Cheney's hunting trip, and not Al Gore blasting our troops and being treasonous in his regard to this war on terror in the Middle East? (Applause.) How do you keep it together?

9. In light of national security, some of us baby boomers are going to retire in the next three to five years. And the number of people replacing us is only at about 63 percent. So what are we going to do with immigration to make sure we have enough people to fill those positions?

10. It's a small part of the world, but it's very important to me -- I'm concerned about the children in northern Uganda who are the victims of the rebel Joseph Kony. And I'm wondering if you can bring any pressure to bear on President Museveni to stop that 20-year war and free those children from the bondage that they're under.


Note the phrasing of questions about abortion and immigration in 7 and 9. Also, note how questions that raise mild concerns---question 1 about affordable housing, and questions 3 and 4 about oil---are couched within compliments and effusive praise; this is a recurring and now blatant characteristic of the "questions" at these faux town hall sessions. Free advice for Bush's handlers: rhetorical techniques work best when used sparingly and subtly.

And of course question 8 speaks volumes, doesn't it?

A real town hall meeting in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Michigan, primetime on a Tuesday night, tickets actually available to the public, no scripts, random questions with no prescreening by aides, and families of current servicemen in the audience. It's called leadership. What's the above called?