A writer for the gay advocacy blog AMERICAblog Gay says that when he applied to be a participant at Thursday afternoon's MTV/BET town hall with President Obama, MTV representatives asked him for a "lighter question." After asking what topics I was personally interested in, they asked what question I'd want to ask President Obama if I were in a room with him. I gave a sample question to give them a sense of where I'd go, but not anything specific (something about the role that federal policy plays in preventing bullying in light of the recent attention to suicide). The next question was: What lighter question would I ask the President -- something related to pop culture perhaps. I hadn't given any thought to this because, really, what moron blows this opportunity by asking the President "Mac or PC?" I gave them some light question and it was the one note that was made during the interview. I was not invited to attend.
Asked about the incident Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that in hundreds of town halls, the president has always gotten questions that weren't "easy."
On Twitter at least, MTV is soliciting serious queries, asking people to send in their questions with hashtags like #askjobs and #asklgbt.
The town hall is airing at 4 P.M. EST on MTV, BET, CMT, mtvU, Centric and Tr3s. You can watch it live on MTV.com, BET.com, CMT.com and Tr3s.com.
