Obama's First News Conference

Not bad. I watched it on the local news here is LA and they did it without commercials. I was kind of surprised actually. I thought I was watching CNN until it was over.

Anyway, Obama gave substantive answers to hard questions. He didn't make any gaffs that I could detect and he held and used the bully pulpit as if he owned it. He used it to get his point across, "Pass my bill because it's needed and let's stop playing these silly games".

I like the fact that he appeared to be speaking to adults. He's not telling me how great America is, he's telling me that this is a time America has to show everyone why we're supposed to be great. Not a bad message to tell us after the last few decades.

I like the way he's not taking sides in the debate, simply expressing why he believes his ideas can work and challenging others to come up with 'good' ideas. He's not promising pie in the sky, he's saying that things will change and we need to manage it intelligently, something that we haven't been doing the last few years.

Granted, I didn't like the dodge when asked the question if he knew of a middle-eastern country with nuclear weapons. He knows that Israel has them but then I'm not expecting miracles with even this president so I didn't see him admitting it.

Heard a lady on CNN say it perfectly. Obama's being 'pragmatic'. That makes sense in these times so I guess he gets a passing grade. I don't like his foreign policy but can't really complain about this attempt at fixing the economy because I understand the strategy and see how it could work.

Now I guess we'll have to wait and see if Mr. Obama's plan will work. He definitely instilled more confidence in me for the chance of success, if we work at it, more than Bush ever did. But then that's not really saying much given what I thought of Bush. Low bars are easily jumped.