re: #36 dragonfire1981

Um, I think that’s kind of the idea. Reporters are supposed to be independent, they’re not supposed to ask questions fed to them by any politician or his/her campaign in advance. They should also not be required to give the candidate or his/her campaign their questions beforehand.

Personally, I think a major part of running for/being President is contending with situations and questions you never knew were coming.

American politicians usually aren’t very good at unscripted questions because it’s not part of our political culture. Even during the debates the candidates usually know what’s going to be asked of them. Giuliani was a rare example of an American who handled questions well, mostly from practice at press conferences as NY Mayor.
In the UK, there’s a regular feature where the Prime Minister goes into Parliament and they pelt him with questions. It’s kind of fun to watch. We should do the same thing here.