Questions for Kerry, questions for Bush.

Terrific illustration by Peter Hoey for this NYT op-ed--here and here--that collects questions for the big town hall debate tonight. The drawing--of a United States-shaped boxing arena--looks especially sharp and striking on the computer screen, but the layout is cleverer in the print version because the illustration is under the text and the cord extended up from the light divides the piece into two columns--questions for Bush and questions for Kerry. Some of those who contributed questions for this piece used it--predictably--as an opportunity to express their concern about a particular issue, without really framing a question that could extract an answer worth hearing ("What steps would you take to protect consumers from deliberately or inadvertently tainted food?"). And we all know what the candidates do with questions like that: they brush them aside and say something else they wanted to say. Of course, tonight, the questioners won't be the kind of experts that contributed to this op-ed, but regular folks, so the candidates will have to be especially careful to be graceful as they brush the question aside.

And, yes, I plan to simulblog the debate (with a bit of TiVo delay).