Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has gone beyond the headlines to write about some interesting ideas John McCain spoke about recently. http://newsweek.com/id/137530?from=rsswww. While the Republican candidate has gotten more publicity for seconding President Bush's thinly-veiled characterization of Barack Obama as an appeaser, he has also floated some intriguing proposals on government transparency.
One is "pledging to abandon Bush's pernicious habit of attaching signing statements to bills." This practice, when it is used to change the intent of Congress when it passed the bill, is, in my view, unconstitutional. Bush has used it for that purpose time and time again.
Another is a promise to restore weekly press conferences. This would be a welcome change from the secretive conduct and the rare and highly scripted nature of most Bush press conferences. The American people miss out on quite a bit when their President does not share his mind with them extemporaneously. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Reagan were very open in this way.
But the bombshell idea was this one: "I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the prime minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons." Alter comments, "As C-Span viewers of the weekly British Question Time can attest, this would be revolutionary, even if our version proved far tamer."
That is certainly true, and even an understatement. It indicates McCain possesses a tremendous confidence in his knowledge of government operations, given that he could be asked practically anything under the sun by Democratic Senators or Representatives. He would also need to study hard to prepare for these sessions, and that would keep him on top of innumerable programs and issues.
One thing is for sure; a proposal like this certainly shows McCain has guts. And if he were able to pull it off successfully it would do much to help him advance his agenda in office.
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