I had a cat once that used to do things like knock something valuable off a table, and then sit right by the wreckage preening himself, giving me this look like, "It's all part of the master plan and I am the master planner..."

Of course, he had a brain the size of an almond ...

Hmmm...

Frankly, I think it is news that we have an intelligent president who has a full grasp of the issues and is able to speak in depth about what his administration is doing and plans to do -- and is honest about what they have yet to do.

I thought some of the questions were childish and churlish. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of CNN, the Crabby Negative Nitpickers, and I think Ed Henry should be fired for asking "Why did it take you two days to register your outrage over the AIG bonuses?" I loved Obama's answer to that question. It's not his job to engage in knee-jerk reaction; Congress seems to be filling that role more than adequately.

The press is only interested in "Gotcha!" questions and fault-finding. I watched about three minutes of so-called analysis after the press conference and realized I was listening to intellectual lightweights filling airtime with ill-conceived opinions, so I turned off the TV, got a good book, and went to bed. The contrast between our competent, intelligent, thoughtful president and the cretins of the press is making it quite clear that he is definitely not "overexposed" -- if we ever hope to stay informed, we're going to have to hear from him.

I watched the whole Leno interview. I didn't even catch the Special Olympics line until the news media glommed onto it and continually replayed it, and tried to get comments from Special Olympics people, etc.

We're in a huge economic crisis. Our president spent nearly 40 minutes on Leno explaining the crisis and explaining what he intends to do about it.

Why isn't that the most important story to come out of this interview? Is it because when he was talking about the economy he was calm, collected, intelligent, sensible and acting like a leader -- and gosh, who's interested in that? We only care about political correctness, not political aptitude.

This whole discussion is sickening.

I think it would help us all to trust that Barack Obama is not an idiot, nor is he a fool easily duped. He and his administration have an avalanche of problems rolling over them, and I think, rather than nitpicking everything, we SHOULD trust that they are all working diligently; that they, like any human beings, may make mistakes along the way; and most especially that they do have their eyes on the big picture and on creating a new economy and a new culture free from the excesses and illusions of the past.

I am astonished at what they have had to do and what they have had to face in less than three months. It feels really wrong to me not to give them a chance to address problems over time and demonstrate what their long-range thinking is leading towards, rather than pouncing on every little detail and ignoring all the things that ARE working.

All these Right Wingers have no credibility with me. They present emotional arguments for saving cells that might become babies, except they are going to be discarded, but they have NO PROBLEM sending these babies off to war to die and be maimed as soon as they are 18. And they have no problem training them to kill other people's offspring.

Shut up. You guys are full of it.

Dean belongs in this administration. He would be a big help on health care. I hope they find a way to include him. But I'm confident he'll help anyway.

What a breath of fresh air!

The Bush administration's politicization of science put a stranglehold on important discoveries and advances. Reading redacted scientific documents was painful and disheartening to anyone who cares about the freedom under which true science flourishes and real innovation takes place.

This is all part of the stimulus. If science is allowed to work unfettered, new ideas will enter the business world and energize the new economy.

Steele is an entertainer, too.

Who knew?

Oops. "You da man" of Steele turned out to be just another Wimp, cowering in the glare of Rush Limbaugh's bloviating ire.

Steele is gone. I wonder if they'll try for a token Hispanic next as head of the RNC, which is quickly becoming the Right Nutcase Crowd.

I think Rush would take "incendiary" and "ugly" as compliments. If Steele had called him "irrelevant" and "out of the mainstream," he'd be demanding an apology. But the majority of Republicans, thus far, are proving to be incendiary and ugly, so what's the big deal?

Thanks, Joan, for taking on Maureen Dowd and others who refuse to acknowledge the quiet strength and confidence that will see Obama (and us) through this economic debacle. I usually enjoy Maureen Dowd because you gotta give her credit for being an imaginative writer and a shrewd (if not sometimes shrill) observer, but her characterizations of Obama are turning to the creepy.

Flag-draped coffins are still a sanitized version of war.

I flew home more than once during VietNam in C-130's with body bags stacked like sacks of corn in the back of the plane, held in place by mesh netting. The plane was so cold we almost froze to death for reasons that do not have to be explained.

And even THAT sanitized the real truth about what those bags contained.