Barack On Fox

I watched Barack Obama on Fox Sunday today (transcript), and, this is probably a good thing for those Fox viewers who don't see a lot of him in depth, and for him to show these viewers that he's not a bogeyman.

However, I was both impressed an unimpressed by Obama's performance on Fox Sunday. Impressed that he is a tremendously good interviewee. If I were hiring for a position, this guy would come across as well-educated, smart, and thoughtful, and it would be difficult to deny him a job. But, at his core, did he really say anything? He seemed to know the right answers, and he's deft enough that when he knows his answer isn't right (or not what this particular audience wants to hear, he either dances around it, or does what used to call "changing the casualty to one you DO know the immediate responses to - the Ayers/Coburn comment), he spins it to his advantage.

That's pretty good for a job interview, but, this is the Presidency of the United States. He was very poor on the bipartisanship question, in fact, his answer was tortured, and I wonder how long it will be before people dig up instances where partial-birth abortion came up for votes with exceptions for the life of the mother, and he still voted against it. And, on taxes, he thinks anyone making more than $102,000 (the current Social Security cut-off) is rich. I always knew at some point my family had crossed over into the territory where we don't worry too much about creditors, so we had a modicum of safety, but, then he decided to lop us in with his "good friend" Warren Buffett. This is a neat trick. Equate families who make say $100k-$200k with mega-billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, as though we're all out there buying the same houses, cars, yachts, and islands.

Besides those things, I find, likely as do many, that you leave Barack Obama thinking, "Nice guy, good speaker, but, what did he really say?"

As the general election progresses, we are going to get the opportunity to hear him really say things, and the American people will find out what he really believes, and when they do, I don't think they are going to really like it.