Time for a Debate

Is President Bush genuinely willing to confront his critics?

Talking about the war in Iraq last week in a brief interview with ABC's Martha Raddatz, Bush said something quite remarkable:

"There are some in Washington that say 'pull out now.' I look forward to debating those voices."

So how about it?

Bush has been getting a lot of positive press over the last several weeks for taking questions from unscreened audiences. And while that's certainly a change from past practice -- in which nonsupporters were frequently not even allowed in the same room with him -- it's a far cry from actually engaging in a dialogue with those who disagree with him on important issues.

The new White House communications strategy is ostensibly to get the president out in public more often, speaking to the press and the public, serving as his own best advocate.

But if yesterday's appearance before the National Restaurant Association in Chicago was any indication -- and it was -- then the plan is not so much for Bush to publicly mix it up with critics as to have him continue repeating his tired old talking points so often that people, hopefully, start to believe them.

Even if, statistically speaking, two out of three people in the room yesterday thought Bush was doing a lousy job as president, the White House can count on the fact that the vast majority of people who get to the microphones at these events are going to be respectful, if not downright obsequious.

Here's the transcript of yesterday's event. Bush devoted 43 minutes to a question-and-answer session, but on account of his extremely long, rambling responses, there were only 10 questions in all. (No follow-ups, naturally.)

Bush chose to ignore the woman who yelled out "Where are the weapons of mass destruction?" Instead, his questioners launched into their softballs with such phrases as "First of all, I want to say you're doing a fine job," and "Let me first say, it's an honor to hear you speak. And I'm a proud supporter."

Then there was the guy in the chef's hat who got up and said: "[O]n behalf of all the cooks and chefs in our country, I have to say you're running it the way a chef would run the country, and we're proud of you."

Sure, Bush has gotten the what-for a few times lately. Most memorably, at an event last month in Charlotte , a soft-spoken, 61-year-old real estate broker named Harry Taylor got up and told Bush that "in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington."