Or he should say (but won't), "I support Mr. Kerry's right to free speech. Does he not support the same right to other veterans, if that speech is critical of him?"
Or he should say (but won't), "I have wondered again and again: what exactly did Mr. Kerry mean when he said, 'Bring it on'? Now all we hear is 'Call it off!'"
Or he should say (but won't), "Someone should tell Mr. Kerry that being President is a rough job. It inevitable involves being the target of a lot of harsh criticism. If he can't take the pressure at this point, when he is selling his strength of character to the nation, perhaps he should reconsider his own immediate career plans."
I don't think it is smart to merely invite your opponent to respond to an open ended question or one that is too loosely framed. That gives him the opportunity to merely subtly change the question slightly into one that will allow him to hit it out of the park, or at least dodge the real issue making it look like he answered when he really didn't. Then you have to be the whiner next time your turn comes up and say "but he didn't really answer the question as I posed it..." and thus it's punch is lost.
Here is what you do: You ask the question and give the answer for your opponent using one of his quotes or a paraphrase of his quote. For instance:
I would like to ask Mr. Kerry how he plans to repair the terrible damage he has done to the relations with many of our allies by denigrating their sacrifices repeatedly on the campaign trail? Just a few weeks ago his campaign called the Iraqi prime minister a "puppet" and questioned his credibility saying that he is "out of touch with the realities on the ground". Mr. Kerry, why would you call our most important ally in the Iraq war, an extremely courageous man who has on numerous occasions been targeted for death by Sadaam Hussein and is targeted for death every day by the Al Queda terrorists and Baathist extremists in Iraq, who lives in Bagdhad, a puppet who is out of touch? How do you plan to repair that damage? Are you going to start now by offering an apology to Mr. Allawi? I mean, is this scorn what all our 30 allies such as Britain, Poland, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Australia, Georgia, the Netherlands, (Bush names as many as he can), can expect to be treated for the money, blood, risk, and terrible sacrifice they have been making? You have some apologies to make, Senator, before you can ever think about winning over allies to fight with us in this great cause for freedom.This inserts his own recent quotes and completely frames it so that if Mr. Kerry does not apologize or deal with it directly he will look like he dodged it. You insert his quote(s) so that your question begs to be answered. You score in people's minds so that they too are on the edge of their seats wanting him to directly answer the question.
All of your questions are too easily changed by Kerry into blowback questions. Like, if I were Kerry responding to one about the veterans and free speech, I would just say something like:
"I think it is particularly pathetic that this president would even bring up veterans and free speech. First of all, I served in combat and he did not, no one disputes that. In fact, all we heard for the last two years was this man's party trying to deflect and hide from criticism about his policies under the blanket of 'we are at war and you should not criticize when we are at war.' Mr. Bush, we veterans fought so that people like you and many others could enjoy the free speech you abuse with these horrible character assasinations."See what I mean? He didn't even have to deal with the question and was able to turn it back into an issue he has a long suit in. You have to really ask questions really tightly around your strengths and make the audience really anticipate how the other is going to deal with it directly.
Superb. I wish he'd do it.
Dan