Questions for Karen Hughes

Bush's advisor is returning to Washington and may soon face a Senate confirmation hearing. We've got a few things to ask.

Tim Grieve

Mar 14, 2005 | George W. Bush's media advisor, confidante and alter ego will return to Washington soon -- apparently to become the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. If that's the job Bush picks for Karen Hughes, she'll have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. And if that's the case, we've got a few questions we'd like to see Hughes answer under oath -- and not just the one about how, exactly, her experience as a TV news reporter in Texas prepares her for the job of rebuilding the image of the United States in the Middle East.

1. When you abruptly ended a 1998 interview in which Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater was talking with Bush about his arrest record, were you trying to prevent Bush from admitting that he had been arrested for drunk driving in 1976 or were you covering up some other arrest?

2. In ghost-writing Bush's autobiography, "A Charge to Keep," you claimed that Bush took it upon himself to volunteer for the Texas Air National Guard and suggested that he continued flying for the TANG long after he actually did. Did you believe those statements were true when you wrote them? Did the president?

3. Did you out Valerie Plame? And if you didn't, who did?

4. When Wolf Blitzer asked you last year how abortion would factor into the presidential race, you said: "I think after September 11th the American people are valuing life more and realizing that we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life. . . . The fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life." Do you believe it is fair to equate Americans who support abortion rights with terrorists?

5. You know the president better than just about anyone. What was that bulge on his back?

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