A person's entire life is making choices, and analyzing the alternatives. Some things are educated guesses, and others are almost certain due to the exclusion of some occurrences by others.

As just one example: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi fled Afghanistan for Iraq in 2001, and holed up with the terrorists encamped in the north of that country until the invasion of Iraq. If Saddam still controlled Iraq, and the U.S. was occupying Afghanistan, what the hell do you think Zarqawi would be doing right now? Where would he be based? What actions would he be taking? This doesn't take mutant powers. It just takes horse sense.

It's easy for some people to blow off this kind of analysis. John Kerry's method:

When Mr. Kerry was pressed about how he would handle the threat of a North Korean nuclear test if he was in the Oval Office, he declined to be prescriptive, other than to say that the issue would probably have to be taken to the United Nations Security Council. "Hypothetical questions are not real," he said, arguing that North Korea was a case for preventive diplomacy, and that Mr. Bush's "ideologically driven" approach had kept him from truly engaging North Korea.

Yeah, we've already seen how effective the "preventative diplomacy" has been.

Sorry, John, but almost every question preceded by "what would you do..." is a "hypothetical question." Sorry you're above all that, since this sort of question is exactly the kind policitians have to answer.

As with a few people here, this is shorthand for "I don't have a frigging clue what I would have done, I'm annoyed that you would ask, but if I blow enough smoke out of my ass, maybe you'll pretend I actually answered the question."

I suppose Gore would answer any "what would you have done if you were President now" questions in a similar manner.