Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News have rightly been criticized for focussing on “gotcha” type questions in the presidential “debate” of April 16. Whether asking about Clinton’s misrepresentation of her experience in war-torn Bosnia or Obama’s relation to pastor Jeremiah Wright, the questions served the prurient interests of viewers about alleged personal weaknesses of the candidates, leaving little time, as Obama complained, for them to talk about substantive policy issues. With this in mind, I offer a few questions that were not asked but which are the “tough” questions that American voters need to have asked on their behalf. Each one is “confrontational,” and would probably have made both candidates uncomfortable, but for a good public benefit.
1. “Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, you both speak of immediate withdrawal from Iraq beginning as soon as you become President. If the war is a ‘mistake,’ why must you wait until next January to help bring it to an end? As a member of Congress you have the ‘power of the purse’ to stop the war by voting to withhold funding in the immediately-upcoming vote on a supplemental war appropriation. Will you vote to do that?”
2. “Senator Clinton, you just said, in response to my question whether the U.S. should consider an Iranian attack on Israel as an attack on the United States, that this country should have an “umbrella” of protection against nuclear attack under which any country could come that would forego its efforts at nuclear weapons production. Since your answer referred to a question about Israel, I assume that you expected that country to fit under that umbrella. But doesn’t Israeli itself have nuclear capabilities that we have helped to develop? So could people living in Tel Aviv, or in fact Philadelphia, enjoy the protection of that umbrella?… Senator Obama, your response?”
3. “Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, you have both indicated your opposition to NAFTA even though, Senator Clinton, it was passed during your husband’s presidency. Though you both now are opposed to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, one of your aides, Senator Obama, was said to have told a Canadian official not to take this issue “seriously” and you, Senator Clinton, had a top advisor who was found to be assisting the Colombian government in securing its passage. Given the fact that both of you supported last December a Free Trade Agreement with Peru very similar to NAFTA and the Colombia one, how can the American people believe that either of you is “serious” about addressing trade practices that are harmful to workers in the United States and in other countries?”
4. “Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Israel has just begun building additional settlements in the West Bank, in violation of the “roadmap to peace” that was negotiated with U.S. support. If you were President, what would you do to insure that Israel would not further violate the terms of this roadmap?”
5. “Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, you have both spoken eloquently about the need for fiscal responsibility and also about your commitments to insure the future of Social Security, full funding of No Child Left Behind, massive reconstruction of American infrastructure and other urgent domestic needs of the country. Given the cost of these programs and your desire to accomplish them without deficit financing, how would you pay for them? Specifically would you consider reductions in massive defense expenditures if these cuts could be accomplished without compromising the security of the United States? If so, where would you look to the possibility of such cuts?”
6. “Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, you both have indicated your intention to reduce the influence of “special interests” during your presidential administration. But the investment firm of Goldman Sachs, to cite one example, has contributed around a half million dollars to each of your campaigns. You, Senator Clinton, have a former campaign contribution “bundler” who is now in jail for illegal campaign fund-raising and you, Senator Obama, it has just been revealed in a USA Today article, have been assisted in such campaign fund bundling by 38 lawyers who are associated with firms that lobby in Washington. Can you really expect the American people to believe that your presidency will counter “special interest” influence?
Were there to be a genuine “debate,” issues like the ones addressed in these questions would surely be raised; otherwise, further debates might be useful in selling the commercial products advertised with such profuseness in the Wednesday night debate, but would have little other redeeming value. Since, I would guess, these two candidates would give essentially identical answers to these questions, would it not be vital to future debates that other candidates besides the Republican and Democratic ones be included before Americans elect their next President in November?