Great Interview With Pres. Obama by NY Times Friday

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On Air Force One Friday as they traveled back from Ohio, President Obama gave an interview to the NY Times reporters who were with him. They asked many questions, however the one that struck me as the most ignorant was, "Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?". I thought this was the NY Times, not Fox News. Click the title also to see the entire interview. Or there are other places in here to click to see it.

However, our President took it in stride, and answered graciously as always. "You know, let’s take a look at the budget – the answer would be no."

There is more to this discussion that I haven't put here, he just basically tells them to stick it...lol Then tells them what he thinks in no uncertain terms. The reporter then wants to play games and says well are you a liberal, progressive, one word, whatever.. and the president just tells him to forget it.. he isn't playing those games. Like I said earlier.. silly season... like Fox News. And they call them Liberal Media... geeze louise...lol

After landing and thinking about it for a bit Pres. Obama decided to flesh out his answer just a bit and called them back. Here is what he told them then.

At 2:30 p.m., President Obama called The New York Times, saying he wanted to clarify a point from the interview. Here is a transcript of that brief call:

President Obama: Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter. It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch. And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement – the prescription drug plan without a source of funding. And so I think it’s important just to note when you start hearing folks through these words around that we’ve actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word socialist around can’t say the same.

Q. So who’s watch are we talking about here?

A. Well, I just think it’s clear by the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system. And the thing I constantly try to emphasize to people if that coming in, the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. I have more than enough to do without having to worry the financial system. The fact that we’ve had to take these extraordinary measures and intervene is not an indication of my ideological preference, but an indication of the degree to which lax regulation and extravagant risk taking has precipitated a crisis.

I think that covers it.

Now there is a lot more that comes between these two points in the interview, but I am not going to copy and paste it all here. I will just give you the link and you can go read it. It is a very good interview. Never let it be said that he is not being open and honest, transparent and clear in his answers.

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