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Week of April 13, 2008 - April 19, 2008

Policy questions that haven't been asked


One of the few defenses that I've heard of ABC's awful performance last night is that there is no need to ask policy questions, because all of the major policy questions have already been asked. According to this line of thinking, further policy questions would just lead to a repetition of the same statements from the same two figures. Of course, it's hard to see what new was discovered about Jeremiah Wright or flag lapels because of the idiotic questioning last night. But as a service to future debate moderators, off the top of my head here are some policy issues that I do not believe have been addressed in any of the debates, by either candidate. The mods for the next debate can feel free to take as many of these as they want. And feel free to add your own! Off the top of my head, some questions that I don't believe have been answered: To HRC: How would you enforce your health care mandate? To both: How would you instruct our intelligence officers to interrogate terrorism suspects? To both: Under what circumstances would you seek a prosecution for Bush officials for torture or conspiracy to commit torture? To both: do you support protecting telecoms from prosecution for participating in warrantless wiretapping? To both: How would you convince China or India to agree to binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? To Obama: how do you plan to reach out to evangelicals given your abortion record? To both: on abortion, do you support: parental consent requirements? a ban on partial birth abortion? spousal consent requirements? funding for international organizations that support abortion? To HRC: if you were the nominee, how would you win back the support of the black community? To both: how would you begin to pay off the national debt? To both: what would be your strategy to support development in the third world? To both: how can the U.S. best promote peace between the Israelis and Palestinians? To both: how can the U.S. best promote democracy in China? To both: what is your plan to control the spread of nuclear weapons, especially from former Soviet states? To both: would you join the International Criminal Court? To both: what steps would you take to promote human rights internationally? To both: do you support increased regulation of the internet? To both: do you support mandatory minimums for drug crimes? To both: do you support increased penalties for possession crack relative to cocaine? To both: do you support legalizing medical use of marijuana? To both: what is your plan to improve inner city education? To Obama: how has living in a Muslim country as a child affected your understanding of America's role in the world, or in our relationship with the Muslim world? To HRC: can you name some specific ways that your administration would differ from your husband's administration?
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satya

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