A strong performance, I thought. Obama didn't fully answer a few of the questions, but he didn't sound slippery. He was credible and firm in discussing the economy. On the subject of the stimulus and bipartisanship, I got a kick out of this suggestion:
Now, just in terms of the historic record here, the Republicans were brought in early and were consulted. And you'll remember that when we initially introduced our framework, they were pleasantly surprised and complimentary about the tax cuts that were presented in that framework. Those tax cuts are still in there.
I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and then let them take credit for all of them. And maybe that's the lesson I learned.
A little more on the meta/process side than you usually hear from a president. I like it.
More substantively, I was struck by yet another ominous sign that the Obama administration has lost faith in Afghan president Hamid Karzai:
I think, because of the extraordinary work done by our troops and some very good diplomatic work done by Ambassador Crocker in Iraq, we just saw an election in Iraq that went relatively peacefully, and you get a sense that the political system is now functioning in a meaningful way. You do not see that yet in Afghanistan. They've got elections coming up, but effectively the national government seems very detached from what's going on in the surrounding community.
Also, Arianna is presumably in heaven as HuffPost reporter Sam Stein gets called on. Under new managment indeed.
--Michael Crowley