A phenomenon is sweeping through twitter, the political blogosphere and amongst pundits in the realm of politics.

On Jan. 29^th the President of the United States accepted an invitation to address the GOP retreat. The ensuing question and answer segment that was televised was perhaps the most refreshing exchange that we have seen in politics in many years.

Question time, named for similar parliamentary practice in England and elsewhere, is a time that the president answers questions from the political opposition. The practice if adopted even in an informal fashion could be a viable alternative to the great spin machine that mainstream news media has become. Politicians challenging each other over the span of thirty, sixty or even ninety minutes is obviously much more enlightening than two minutes of spewed talking points followed by a “we’re going to have to leave it there”.

Americans are worried and uncertain. FDR used forum of the “fireside chat” in a period of similar concern to help calm the national psyche. We need the informational equivalent of those chats now, a conversation that is spontaneous, frank and televised. Question time could be the new “fireside chat” a vehicle by which Americans reengage in the debate by actually watching debate, not huddling around the cable news network that most closely aligns with the perceptions they already hold.

Of course, for question time to be truly useful in our political discourse the president will need to take it to the next level. The president needs to challenge members of his own party by asking pointed questions to those members about their opposition when present to his policies. We need to ask all politicians at the national level to answer real questions about their positions and let them justify those positions in the course of civilized debate.

We have to move past political debate that only consists of pundits talking about the sound bites of the day. Question time brings the possibility of actual transparent accessible debate back to a country that desperately needs it for the maintenance of democracy.

There is an online petition asking the president and congress to make this style of forum an ongoing feature of governance, the link is below.

http://demandquestiontime.com/petition/

The twitter hashtag to follow the conversation is #QuestionTime

He asks a question that has nothing to do with finding the truth, only trying to get his interviewee to say something that might dominate the news cycle for the next 24 hours, and then he turns on the shit eating grin as he mentally pats himself on the back for being so damn clever.