Out-Chuck Todd Chuck Todd
by dday
We have a pretty terrible media. The press conference featured question after question of irrelevant, puerile, ill-formed half-thoughts that was about as depressing as reading a Twitter feed. President Obama was game, but I think he might want to ditch the news conference part and just go Perot, whipping out charts and graphs and delving deep into explanations of what the country faces and what we need to move forward. The media filter just stifles thought.
That said, perhaps opening the Q&A process up to adults - namely the general public - can yield better results.
Today, the President invited everyone to use a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov called "Open for Questions" to ask a question about the economy and rate other questions up or down. Then, on Thursday morning, the President will conduct a special online town hall on the economy and answer some of the most popular questions and the event will be streamed on WhiteHouse.gov.
"Open for Questions" is a new experiment for WhiteHouse.gov, the President’s latest effort to open up the White House and give Americans from around the country a direct line to the Administration.
This first round will deal with a chief concern for all of us: the economy. We’ve created a few categories to better organize the questions, and encourage you to search for a specific question before you submit your own in case it already exists.
To get started, head over to http://WhiteHouse.gov/OpenForQuestions and set up your account. Then follow the simple instructions to start voting on questions or submit your own (we encourage you to include a link to a published video of the question being asked, although this is not required).
If this means I never have to listen to Ed Henry or Chip Reid or Major Garrett again, then thank you, White House. I'm sure you can think of a few good questions for the President, so have at it if the spirit moves you.
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