Let the pundits wail and gnash their teeth about federally funded fat cat bonuses. Let the columnists dissect the stimulus package, explaining, with scholarly harrumphs, why it is or isn’t the return of the New Deal, why the new administration is hewing dangerously left, perilously right or just altogether lost. President Barack Obama is not a product of media opinion or analysis; he’s a child of television, and although he’s not above writing a widely distributed op-ed piece rallying all nations to the G-20 summit, it is in television he trusts.
In the last two weeks alone, he surprised the traditional Washington press corps by passing on its annual Gridiron Club dinner only to make unprecedented appearances on ESPN, where he picked his NCAA bracket favorites, and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” where he committed his biggest presidential gaffe to date before returning to “60 Minutes” for a tough-questions interview with Steve Kroft. Tuesday night, he held his second prime-time news conference in the last 65 days, during which he not only answered policy questions with bountiful detail but also offered a glimpse of the elusive Obama temper. When a reporter continued to needle him about his “delayed” response to the AIG bonuses, Obama shut him down: “It took me a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak, OK?”
