Surprised, Troubled, Enchanted and Humbled

Presidential press conferences have a rote quality to them-our current president has a habit, for example, of taking questions from 13 reporters, as he did Wednesday night-but President Obama's First Hundred Days' prime time news conference in the East Room had just enough unscripted moments to make it interesting and instructive.

Obama handled himself deftly, articulately striking a balance between sticking to his talking points and actually answering the questions that were asked-something presidents don't always do. The White House press corps acquitted itself well, too, which is not always the case, asking an eclectic mix of questions about policy, politics, and governing style. That assessment, by the way, comes from Martha Joynt Kumar, who has written elsewhere for PoliticsDaily.com this week and who is considered the nation's foremost expert on the subject of presidents and the press.

The highlight of the 57-minute session was when Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times, posing question Number Seven, asked the president what had "surprised, troubled, enchanted and humbled" him the most during his First Hundred Days on the job.

Apparently charmed by the question-or perhaps simply knowing there was no getting out of it-Obama took out a pen and asked Zeleny to repeat the four categories. The president smiled as he leaned on his lectern, repeating each word as he wrote it down. The Big O then proceeded to engage the question, although he shifted the terms somewhat, an experience that was enlightening for the journalists in the room as well as the millions of Americans watching in their homes because it afforded us a chance to see the man think on his feet:

Surprised: Obama professed surprise, and not a little dismay, by "the number of critical issues that appear to be coming to a head all at the same time."

Troubled: Obama said he didn't want to use that phrase, substituting "sobered by," instead. And what was he sobered by after 100 days on the job? "The fact that change in Washington comes slow." Okay, it was ungrammatical, but his point was unmistakable. "That there is still a certain quotient of political posturing and bickering that takes place even when we're in the middle of really big crises," he added. "I would like to think that everybody would say, you know what, let's take a timeout on some of the political games, focus our attention for at least this year, and then we can start running for something next year. And that hasn't happened as much as I would have liked."

Enchanted: This category at first seemed to stump Obama, but only momentarily. He again substituted wording he liked better-this time the phrase was "profoundly impressed and grateful" instead of enchanted-and he said those were his feelings when he thought of his interactions with the men and women wearing the military uniform of this country from the "top brass to the lowliest private."

Humbled: Obama didn't quibble with this word at all. He said his sense of imposed humility comes from the fact that the presidency, in all its glory, is only "part of a much broader tapestry" in a nation with many different centers of power. "And so I can't just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want, or, you know, turn on a switch and suddenly, you know, Congress falls in line."
Obama began this press conference with a quick survey of the issues of the day, starting with the swine flu outbreak. He was calm and matter-of-fact, but the measure of how serious he was taking it came when he told Americans (twice) to wash their hands, cover their mouths when they cough, and stay home from work and school if they are sick. And when Obama was asked about closing the U.S. border with Mexico, he said only that the medical experts in the government have not recommended such a draconian step-yet.
An exchange that was even more sobering, if I may use the president's word, came when NBC's Chuck Todd asked Obama if he could assure the American people that if Pakistan's government fell, the troubled nation's nuclear arsenal would not fall into the hands of extremists. Obama did offer such assurances, but with a vagueness that served as a reminder of the frightening uncertainty extant in that part of the world.

The last question of the night was fascinating as well. Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal noted that the president, as the leader of the federal government, was (thanks to the government bailout) a de facto shareholder in two huge financial institutions and a car company. What kind of shareholder was he going to be?

Obama began his answer by saying he hoped he'd be a brief shareholder-that he wanted to get out. "I don't want to run auto companies," he replied. "I've got two wars I've got to run already."
He went on to say that the government shouldn't micro-manage these companies it essentially owned, pointing out that he himself is not an auto engineer. However, the longer he talked about manufacturing hybrids and plug-in cars, the more it seemed that as he mused aloud, it dawned on Obama that running a car company would be far easier than this big ship of state he was elected to captain.
"This metaphor has been used before," he had said earlier in the evening, "but the ship of state is an ocean liner; it's not a speedboat."
He was suggesting that this cruise he's signed up to guide is not a Hundred Day Cruise. It's a longer voyage, with much more heavy weather likely to be ahead.