Obama is about to do his first full-scale news conference since last March.

Which was back when Rick Santorum seemed like he might get the GOP nomination and 2 months before Obama did his first campaign rally. He has been really press-shy... even though the press loves him and boosts him as much as they can. Or so it seems. But there's always a chance some reporter will break out a tough question.

Politico offers some "hard questions" that might conceivably be asked. But the questions, as phrased chez Politico, all sound softened to me. If they're soft on paper under a link-begging headline about hardness, how can we hope for any toughness face-to-face with the President who's been withholding press conferences for 8 months?

Here are the Petraeus-related questions:

Do you believe the FBI should have told you and Congress sooner about the investigation that led Gen. Petraeus to resign?

Do you worry about a culture in which trusted officials behave badly?

Does this administration consider anyone who’s having an extramarital affair, or has had one in the past, to be unfit for public office?

Easy: yes, yes, no. Add a few mushy words and you're done. Instapundit notes that Question 1 "lets Obama off the hook by pretending to believe that he didn’t know anything about Petraeus until after the election, which is quite implausible." It's like the old "When did you stop beating your wife?" question, assuming a fact not yet proved, but the assumed fact is helpful to the witness. The witness is in no danger of getting tripped up, letting the negative assumption go. He'll notice the positive assumption, silently celebrate, and proceed to answer the question asked.