As everyone knows, today's exclusive guest was President Barack Obama, who was well received by those in the studio audience and likely by most of those watching. Overall, I thought that he did well, by and large, even though some of the discussion was fairly general.
Anyway, a few highlights.
*Obama spoke, in response to a question on race, quite insightfully and optimistically about race, and about societal attitudes changing over time, citing his young daughters and their friends as an example of a less bigoted generation coming up. Unsaid, but perhaps a bit implied in the discussion, was the question of the explicit racism of the GOP/teabaggers/Fox/Limbaugh noise machine.
*Obama readily checked off, with a bit of an assist from Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg, a list of the accomplishments of his administration over these past 20 months; he needs to do this regularly, and to lots of different audiences, as he is able to remind people of reality and of what the likely consequences of inaction might have been.
*The president clearly is aware of polls, but also knows how to put them in perspective; what really came across today is that he is taking the long view.
*On Afghanistan, while he laid out the case for staying there for a while, he seemed, I must admit, a bit less than persuasive, Anyway, there were a lot of foreign policy matters that did not get brought up, which is too bad, as it could have been an opportunity to address these.
*Some of the dialogue was a bit fluffy, but that is to be expected.
*And Elizabeth, the token right winger on the panel, truly is a tool and an ignoramus.
Anyway, those are just a few quick thoughts. I'd be curious as to what others have to say.
And for those who may have missed it, here is a video link to this episode.