Q and A

Talking to some of my liberal friends, one of the main points they often make about Bush is that he doesn't answer tough questions. That he is incapable of thinking for himself and that in fact, his answers are already written and the questions are already anticipated. We who actually watch the presidents speeches know that is not true. He may stammer his prepared speeches, but when it comes to answering questions off the cuff, few are able to stump him. We have seen him perform brilliantly during question and answer periods and we have seen him go from defensive to offensive in a matter of moments. Sadly, he is given very little credit by the people who are not "tuned in." I am sure they would say he wears a wire. So, why waste my breath.

Expose The Left has a good take on this very thing. This is what he wrote:"An audience member at a Bush speech in Charlotte, NC today challenged Bush’s terrorist surveillance program, among other things. It seemed like this guy was given a prepared speech from the DNC.....Of course CNN only shows the guy bashing Bush and not the tremendous response the President gave that hosed this guy down.
Of course this guy is now the “hero of the day” for the left. Apparently, you only have to be able to stand up to the President."

Here is the transcript:

Q You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I
listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my
telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from
breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a
woman, you’d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about
whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are—

THE PRESIDENT: I’m not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what’s your question?

Q Okay, I don’t have a question. What I wanted to say to you is
that I—in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by
my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate,
and—

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec—let him speak.

Q And I would hope—I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common
sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope
from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of
yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the
courtesy of allowing me to speak what I’m saying to you right now. That is part
of what this country is about.

THE PRESIDENT: It is, yes. (Applause.)

Q And I know that this doesn’t come welcome to most of the people in this room,
but I do appreciate that.

THE PRESIDENT: Appreciate—

Q I don’t have a question, but I just wanted to make that comment to you.

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate it, thank you. Let me—

Q Can I ask a question?

THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to start off with what you first said, if you don’t mind, you said that I tap your phones—I think that’s what you said. You tapped your phone—I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that’s right. Yes, no, let me finish.
I’d like to describe that decision I made about protecting this country. You can come to whatever conclusion you want. The conclusion is I’m not going to apologize for
what I did on the terrorist surveillance program, and I’ll tell you why. We were
accused in Washington, D.C. of not connecting the dots, that we didn’t do
everything we could to protect you or others from the attack. And so I called in
the people responsible for helping to protect the American people and the
homeland. I said, is there anything more we could do.

And there—out of this national—NSA came the recommendation that it would make sense for us to listen to a call outside the country, inside the country from al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda in order to have real-time information from which to possibly prevent an attack. I thought that made sense, so long as it was constitutional. Now, you may not agree with the constitutional assessment given to me by lawyers—and
we’ve got plenty of them in Washington—but they made this assessment that it was
constitutional for me to make that decision.

I then, sir, took that decision to members of the United States Congress from both political parties and briefed them on the decision that was made in order to protect the American people. And so members of both parties, both chambers, were fully aware of a program intended to know whether or not al Qaeda was calling in or calling out of the country. It seems like—to make sense, if we’re at war, we ought to be using tools necessary within the Constitution, on a very limited basis, a program
that’s reviewed constantly to protect us.

Now, you and I have a different—of agreement on what is needed to be protected. But you said, would I apologize for that? The answer—answer is, absolutely not. (Applause.)