I know the president likes to avoid tough questions, and prefers pre-screened audiences who'll tell him what he wants to hear, but yesterday was ridiculous. Bush spoke to the Associated General Contractors of America, which showered him with the kind of support and affection that the president craves.

After his speech, he opened the floor to questions. He was asked the following:

1. “In May of 2006, my second cousin was on his second tour in Iraq. Corporal Cory Palmer, he’s in the Marines, he was on patrol in a Humvee, and they ran over a roadside bomb. He and many others in that Humvee perished. What do I need to do, what does the media need to do to help you, so that my second cousin, and others like him, have not died or been injured in vain?”

2. “I’d like to know, like a lot of other people in this room, we have family members — we have family members who are actively involved in the security of this country in various ways. From them, we’ve received positive information that we consider credible, who say about the success and the good things that are happening as a result of us being in Iraq. I would like to know why and what can be done about we, the American people, receiving some of that information more from the media.”

3. ” What do you pray about, and how we can we pray for you?”

4. “You talked about the terror of 9/11, and what I wanted to share with you, my wife and I had our first child two months after 9/11. We named her Grace, because we felt that the world needed some grace at the time. And what I wanted to (inaudible) is the fact that our appreciation and keeping my family and also the families of America safe for the past five years.”

No one got around to asking, “Mr. President, how do you maintain your youthful good looks,” but I think that’s because the president stopped after four questions.