Obama on 60 Minutes

It was refreshing, heartening to watch and listen to President Obama last night on 60 Minutes, speaking intelligently, knowledgeably, seriously, articulately in full sentences and paragraphs about his decision to take out Osama bin Laden in a risky special forces mission. It was, in a word, presidential, and it had to remind all of us who voted for him in November 2008 why we had done so. There have been moments – too many – when I’ve questioned the wisdom of my vote – his caving in on a health care plan that included single payer before the negotiations even began, his fumbling arms-length participation in that debate for most all of 2009, his reversals on Guantanamo, his diddling on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” his weak stimulus program, and his apparent inattention if not indifference to jobs. His ability to speak has consistently been impressive, though we mostly see him in scripted and teleprompted appearances or semi-scripted press conferences. What we saw last night was a lengthy interview that went beyond his speaking ability to reveal much about his thought, his decision-making process, his concerns, his doubts, and most important, his ability to take a military and political risk (55-45, he put it) that I don’t know how many others, particularly his many detractors, would have taken. There’s an obvious comparison that could be made here, probably in a humorous way, between Obama’s performance in both the raid and the interview and our previous president’s performance in attempts at both thought and speaking the English language, but I’ll let it go with this apophatic sentence (you can look it up). But I only hope that this becomes a turning point and that it’s followed in the next 18 months by similarly resolved, risky, and persuasive action, in both foreign and domestic policy. I do so want to vote for him again.