Bush spoke to a large gathering of newspaper editors, publishers, and executives yesterday, and admitted what everyone already knew.
The whole issue of questions from the audience at the Associated Press annual luncheon was a running joke for the president during his talk. He opened his speech by saying, “I kind of like ducking questions,” and said he would be “glad to duck any questions like my mother once told me to do” following his remarks. [emphasis added]
After his written remarks, Bush took three questions from the audience — but all three had been submitted in advance by AP members.
Update: To clarify, I may have misread the article about Bush’s speech and the pre-screened questions. The piece explained that Bush answered three questions “submitted in advance by AP members, and read by Burl Osborne, the AP chairman.” As one alert reader explained, this probably meant that the moderator received the questions in advance, but not necessarily that Bush did. It’s a good point; I regret the confusion. The punch line is still valid, though; Bush did say, “I kind of like ducking questions.”