"Education of a President"...(long Peter Baker/NYT Interview with Obama)

[KoKo]

(There were some surprises in this interview...it's worth the read)


October 12, 2010
Education of a President
By PETER BAKER

On a busy afternoon in the West Wing late last month, President Barack Obama seemed relaxed and unhurried as he sat down in a newly reupholstered brown leather chair in the Oval Office. He had just returned from the East Room, where he signed the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 ­— using eight pens so he could give away as many as possible. The act will be his administration’s last piece of significant economic legislation before voters deliver their verdict on his first two years in office. For all intents and purposes, the first chapter of Obama’s presidency has ended. On Election Day, the next chapter will begin.

As he welcomed me, I told him I liked what he had done with the place. Gone was George W. Bush’s yellow sunburst carpet (it says “optimistic person,” Bush would tell practically anyone who visited), and in its place was a much-derided earth-tone rug with inspirational quotations. The curved walls now had striped tan wallpaper, and the coffee table had been replaced by a walnut-and-mica table that, Obama noted, would resist stains from water glasses. The bust of Winston Churchill was replaced by one of Martin Luther King Jr. The couches were new. He told me he was happy with the redecorating of the office. “I know Arianna doesn’t like it,” he said lightly. “But I like taupe.”

If there was something incongruous about the president of the United States checking out reviews of his décor by Arianna Huffington, well, let’s face it, he has endured worse reviews lately. The president who muscled through Congress perhaps the most ambitious domestic agenda in a generation finds himself vilified by the right, castigated by the left and abandoned by the middle. He heads into the final stretch of the midterm campaign season facing likely repudiation, with voters preparing to give him a Congress that, even if Democrats maintain control, will almost certainly be less friendly to the president than the one he has spent the last two years mud wrestling.

While proud of his record, Obama has already begun thinking about what went wrong — and what he needs to do to change course for the next two years. He has spent what one aide called “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0” with his new interim chief of staff, Pete Rouse, and his deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina. During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax breaks as part of his stimulus and instead “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” so it could be seen as a bipartisan compromise.


MUCH MORE...a long an interesting read at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17obama-t.html?pagewanted=1

[KoKo]

1. Why would anyone UnRec this article?

It's an interview with Obama and his staffers who are both "on the record" and "off," but mostly on ...unlike most hack job interviews with Obama this one is very thoughtful. And, it really does show the problems Obama and his staff have found that they want to address after the Mid-Terms.

[dennis4868]

3. I think the article was fair since...

it was mostly quoting Obama and his aides but there were times that the author/interviewer implied things that may or may not be true and he also put the blame on Obama for things that are not his fault (e.g., Obama not meeting with Repubs on a m onthly basis as he promised...well, the repubs saying NO to everything...why the hell should he fucking meet with them even one time?).

[KoKo]

4. I understand what you say...but there were still some "quotes" from Obama Cabinet that

should be listened to..even if they were edited. It's hard to know the "TRUTH" of the "SPIN" and what these reporters have to deal with with all the DOWNSIZING of their Profession, these days.

But..on most of it...I thought it was an interesting read and felt it wasn't hard to weed out the trash from the truth.

I thought this was better than reading Bob Woodward's analysis of Obama Administration which (with Woodward) is always written by the CIA! :eyes: ...where we have to parse through every line to figure out what the "MIC" is trying to tell the American People to keep WARS GOING ON FOREVER....

I thought it was an "interesting read" and I didn't take it for more than that. It's one more piece of our President that hasn't been exposed...whether we agree or disagree....we should at least STILL HAVE THAT RIGHT to OUR OPINIONS as a FREE/DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY!

That's what I think. I like to read IT ALL...then think for myself....I thought that's what it's about here in America..... ???????????

[Pendrench]

2. I thought it was a very interesting article.

Thank you for posting this!

Tim

[KoKo]

5. I think that Obama has many conflicts...I thought Baker touched on some of them that

we might have wondered about. And...agree with you about how interesting the article is for another side of Obama that we here on DU might not always know about...because we can't interview his aides and those close to him.

How much is true or not...(I couldn't detect a Fox News or CNN Spin) but, found the article interesting in the quotes that Baker had to verify from Obama's closest who DID go "On Record" for the interview.