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Morton Mintz's Debate Questions: Questions for Senator Kerry
On October 1, 2004, Bill Moyers talks with Morton Mintz, veteran WASHINGTON POST reporter and former chair of the Fund for Investigative Journalism, about the presidential debates. Mintz has reported on every televised debate since they started in 1960. For several cycles he has drawn up his own list of questions that should be, but often aren't, asked in the debates. In anticipation of the 2004 debate cycle Mintz reviewed matters of concern from national fiscal policy to America's role in the world and came up with an extensive list of questions he'd like to see the two candidates asked. Read his questions below.
National Policy — National Security/Foreign Policy —
Fundamental Fairness — Tax Policy — Religion in American Life —
Questions for President Bush — Questions for Senator Kerry
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Mintz's Questions for Senator Kerry
Democrats up to and including former President Clinton have faulted the way you've run your presidential campaign.
Does your campaign management generate public confidence in how you would run the White House?
You said in August that you would have cast the same "yes" vote in Congress that you did in October 2002 to authorize President Bush to launch the war against Iraq, even if you had known that Saddam Hussein had no ties with Al Qaeda terrorists, had no weapons of mass destruction, and had posed no real threat to the world. "I believe it's the right authority for a president to have," but, you explained, you would have used that power more "effectively."
Weren't you claiming, in effect, that the United States has a preemptive power to start a war even if the grounds for doing so are bogus, and even if it defies the United Nations in doing so, provided it wages the war effectively?
What leads you to believe you could persuade France, Germany or other European countries to send troops to Iraq?
Howard Dean says in his new book that the Democratic Party "emerged from the 1990s pretty much the captive of big-money interests" and "has for some time failed to live up to its mission of being a party for ordinary people."
True?
You've pledged to hold at least one news conference a month, or 48 in four years. That's 33 more solo press conferences than President Bush has held but 35 fewer than his father held.
Why only 48? And would you agree that the public is owed prompt, accurate explanations of governmental policy and in consequence would you direct all department heads also to hold at least one news conference a month?
Under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Justice Department issued orders discouraging compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, and by executive order President Bush has severely restricted disclosure of presidential records.
Would you rescind the Justice Department and executive orders?
For decades, specialists have condemned over-classification of government documents as grossly wasteful, financially shameful, and a barrier — not a benefit — to national security.
Do you agree that there's excessive classification, and would you slash it?
Ralph Nader says you have failed to keep the pledge you made to him in July to look into what he called the Democrats' "unsavory war against my campaign's effort to secure a spot on the presidential ballots in various states."
Did you make that pledge, and if you did, have you kept it? More broadly, are you and the Democrats refusing to respect the rights of voters to cast their ballots for whomever they choose?
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