Asked, but not answered

Perhaps it's a touch of naivete, hoping beyond hope that Dubya would actually answer the questions that Larry King asked last night--and, to his credit, there were a few that were relatively hard-hitting. [Given Dubya's predilection for having everything scripted in advance, the questions were even more surprising.]

But two moments stood out in this discussion. The first came early on, in response to the "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush" ad. Bush was given multiple opportunities to say "No, I don't support this ad. It's uncalled for." But, true to form, in each case, he sidestepped condemning the ad, instead choosing to go after all "527" ads. [Presumably, if Republicans had more money in 527's than the Democrats do, they'd be all for them.]

The other moment came in the discussion of stem cell research. Again, Dubya was disappointing. [Then again, how is that surprising?] King asked a very good question: "you don't support embryonic stem cell research, but you support in vitro fertilization." It was clear that he was going to ask Bush what should be done with the embryos left over from fertilization therapies. Of course, Bush didn't let him ask that question--he jumped in and just stuck to the same tired old speech as before.

As a bonus, he also whiffed the question on the seven minutes, but how can he possibly justify his actions then?

Brilliant evasions, but they tell us far more about his real motivations and beliefs than I think he'd like to admit.