I am blessed. Every quarter of the past year and a half, I’ve gotten to spar with a true-blue politician. Every quarter, I get schooled in the art of evasion.

Every quarter President E. Gordon Gee visits The Lantern newsroom. He will be here tomorrow.

It’s always the same. A day or two before, we sit at our daily meeting and think of questions and topics we want to confront Gee with. We strategize, thinking that maybe this will be the time we actually get something of substance. This time, we hope, we will shock and awe him with our thoughtful questions.

Gee comes in carefully disguised as a friendly old man, with his handyman Jim Lynch in tow. He evades our questions with ease, without breaking a sweat. He is also carefully disguised.  His voice is quiet, almost a whisper, and he seems almost frail when he sits at the head of the table, his head rested on one hand.

This takes us off our guard. And c’mon, he’s adorable. I mean, he wears suspenders and a bow-tie. He’s dressed like Carl from “Up.”  How could we hold war council against such a cute senior citizen?

Except that he is tricking us. Our meetings with Gee usually last about an hour. In this hour we fire as many questions at him as we can. He does not get worked up. He barely moves. He charms us with his soothing voice and smile and doesn’t answer any questions. My adviser, meanwhile, bangs his head against the wall because we don’t even notice he is evading us.

Are we tearing down Hopkins Hall, President? Why no, that’s just a rumor.

Semesters? Well, I like them, and everyone else does too.

Student housing? They will be renovated and super nice and somehow less expensive than having an apartment.

Oh, well, he likes to elaborate on his view about having playoffs in the NCAA. Which I don’t care about. Sorry.

Then he leaves. We editors are left feeling a mix of emotions. We feel good about it at first, like we’ve accomplished something.  Then confusion sets in. What did he actually say? What do we write about again? Then there is anger, because we’ve been played, and then a strange apathy, because this always happens.

I am thankful. As a student, I’ve had the opportunity to have my hand at interviewing a high-caliber politician. I don’t think many universities have a President like ours.

Interviewing President Gee is no different to me than interviewing a senator or a CEO. Gee is a figurehead of a corporation, and we’re the product. He is responsible for assuring the public that we’re a quality product, and that they should pay for us.

So my fellow students, my fellow OSU products, do you want to participate? Send me any questions you have, and we’ll ask him. This time around, we might get an answer.