Mr. Calm

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/04/30/obama/

Mr. Calm

With swine flu now added to the many challenges confronting his 100-day-old administration, President Obama displayed a reassuring competence.

By Mike Madden

Reuters/Larry Downing

President Barack Obama addresses reporters during a news conference in the White House, April 29.

snip//

From the town hall to the press conference, Obama stuck to one overarching message: His administration was working hard to fix the problems George W. Bush left behind -- and doing a fine job of it. "We've got a lot of work to do, because on our first day in office we found challenges of unprecedented size and scope," he told the crowd in Missouri in the morning. "Our economy was in the midst of the most serious downturn since the Great Depression. Banks had stopped lending. The housing market was crippled. The deficit was at $1.3 trillion." The litany was no less depressing for being so familiar. Obama has repeated it almost daily since he took office, hoping to buy his own policies time to show results -- and to build political support for his ambitious agenda. "These challenges could not be met with half measures," he said at the town hall. "They couldn't be met with the same old formulas. They couldn't be confronted in isolation. They demand action that is bold and sustained."

By the usual standards of politics, Obama seems to have made the case, for now. Polling shows that nearly two-thirds of the country rates Obama favorably; almost as many people say they approve of the job he's doing. About half of the country says it's on the wrong track, compared to about 42 percent who say it's on the right track, but for a country mired in two wars and the deepest recession in generations, that's not so bad. (In fact, as Obama aides are quick to point out, those poll numbers have been steadily improving since he took office.)

Part of the reason he's had some success may be the loose, easy style he displayed Wednesday night. At one point, answering a complicated question from the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny about what has, among other verbs, "enchanted" him about the presidency, Obama stuck his left hand in his pocket, cocked his right foot behind him at an angle, and leaned on the lectern. (He had started the answer by teasing Zeleny for the question, raising his eyebrows and taking notes as he made the reporter repeat it.) Throughout the night, he dropped names, locations and facts into his answers in a way that showed he knew what he was talking about, and he managed to stop talking before most of his answers tipped into wonkiness.

snip//

A day before, Arlen Specter had given Obama the best 100-day present any president could ask for, switching from Republican to Democrat and putting Obama's party within reach of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But Obama used a question about the move to pivot to yet another paean to bipartisanship -- and a warning to Republicans, perhaps mindful of the fact that he needs to hold on to support from independents to stay in the public's good graces.

"To my Republican friends, I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine," he said. "If I'm taking some of your ideas and giving you credit for good ideas, the fact that you didn't get 100 percent can't be a reason every single time to oppose my position. And if that is how bipartisanship is defined, a situation in which basically, wherever there are philosophical differences, I have to simply go along with ideas that have been rejected by the American people in a historic election, you know, we're probably not going to make progress."

Though the news conference ended before 9 p.m., taking up less than an hour of prime-time TV, Fox had decided not to bump its regularly scheduled fare -- a show called "Lie to Me," in one of those coincidences you couldn't make up. The last two times Obama has appeared on national television, he's drawn more than 40 million viewers. If any of them tuned in again Wednesday, they probably didn't see much they hadn't seen before: a calm president, coolly giving the appearance that he would help the country recover from the state it's in. Which is probably exactly what the White House wanted. Sometimes, reruns aren't so bad, after all.

[grantcart]

1. Well McCain would have 'suspended' the economic crises to go handle the 'swine flu' crises.

[babylonsister]

2. I thank my lucky stars daily mccain is no where near any of these

problems that need fixing.

[Kdillard]

3. K and r

[Cha]

4. The above hightlighted was the perfect answer to the republicons

who weren't listening to his presser anyway especially, eric cantor, if there was a Britney Spears concert being held last night.

"Part of the reason he's had some success may be the loose, easy style he displayed Wednesday night. At one point, answering a complicated question from the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny about what has, among other verbs, "enchanted" him about the presidency, Obama stuck his left hand in his pocket, cocked his right foot behind him at an angle, and leaned on the lectern. (He had started the answer by teasing Zeleny for the question, raising his eyebrows and taking notes as he made the reporter repeat it.) Throughout the night, he dropped names, locations and facts into his answers in a way that showed he knew what he was talking about, and he managed to stop talking before most of his answers tipped into wonkiness."