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Last week, President Barack Obama and the House Republican caucus held a riveting, televised question-and-answer session at the GOP’s retreat. Now a bunch of lefty and righty bloggers, academics, and media figures (including Mother Jones’ David Corn, who drafted the petition) have formed a coalition to demand more events along the same lines. Alex Balk thinks this is a bad idea:

It’s a good idea unless you’ve seen how Question Times actually work in parliamentary democracies, where members of the governing parties ask self-serving softballs (e.g., “Do you agree with me that the American worker is the hardest worker in the world?”) designed to run out the clock, while the opposition party tosses up as many cheap shots as it can in hopes that something will stick. And even were the process to be modified so that it was simply the President and Republicans, what does it benefit the President to reward the opposition with a continuing platform from which they can repeatedly voice their disagreements without offering credible, concrete alternatives? I mean, doesn’t he already do that enough with the Senate’s Democratic caucus? Nobody wants to watch that.

David actually addresses this concern fairly well in his piece announcing the coalition:

None of us are naive and believe that implementing Question Time will cure what ails our country and our political process. We do realize that if QT does become a Washington routine, politicians and their aides will do what they can to game it to their advantage…. There may well be attempts to institutionalize Question Time in a fashion that renders it nothing more than a canned replay of pre-existing spin. But even though there are problems with the presidential debates—which have been taken over by the political parties and a corporate-sponsored commission—those events still have value.

At Wednesday’s White House press conference, when David asked Bill Burton whether the administration would commit to more Question Time-type events, Burton essentially said no, arguing that last week’s event worked because of its “spontaneity.” Burton and Balk have a point. Even if Question Time happens again, it probably won’t be as good as it was last week. But I think David actually comes out on top here. No one thinks that a few question-and-answer sessions will fix America’s problems. But QT could make things a little bit better. How can that be bad?

(FWIW Kevin thinks last week marked the “first and last” Question Time. Despite all this, he could very well be right.)

Kevin is traveling today and tomorrow.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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