One of the most impactful statements President Obama made during the interview with Steve Kroft was his admission that Washington had indeed changed him. In a bit of political irony, Obama acknowledged that the Republicans, in this election, ran on a nearly identical platform the President himself ran on just two years ago: that of change and being anti-Washington.
Obama responded with this:
"That's one of the dangers of assuming power. And you know, when you're campaigning, you, I think you're liberated to say things without thinking about, "Okay, how am I gonna actually practically implement this."Kroft, during the interview, threw out an interesting statistic to the President regarding the Tea Party saying that "according to the exit polls, four out of ten voters on Tuesday said they supported the movement." When asked what his take was on the rising Tea Party movement, Obama had this to say:
"It'll be interesting to see how it evolves. We have a long tradition in this country of a desire for limited government, of the suspicion of the federal government. Of the concern that government spends too much money. You know, I mean, that's as American as apple pie. But you're still confronted with a fact that the vast majority of the federal budget are things that people really think are important. "Overall, Obama says he is still committed to working with all sides in Washington to move the country forward. When asked if he would be willing to govern from the middle, much like Bill Clinton had to do during his presidency, the President said this:
"What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna reach out to Republicans and I'm gonna say, "What can we work on together?"
"But, I'm gonna keep on trying."You can read CBS's abbreviated wrap-up of both parts of the interview here.
You can also follow the links below to read about what some of the pundits thought of the President's interview.
The Huffington Post
The Christian Science Monitor
The Atlantic
Below is Part 1 of the 2 part interview.
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