Obama May Do Back-to-Back TV Interviews Sunday
If there’s one thing this White House doesn’t seem worried about, it is that Americans will get tired of seeing President Obama.
After a week of speeches and rallies, the appearance on “60 Minutes,” the speech on Wall Street today and a rally in Maryland later this week
Not including the speech to schoolchildren, and the TV speech the following day. Coming up,
Mr. Obama is looking to do what would be a presidential first: sitting down for interviews on at least three of the Sunday morning news shows.
White House officials said that while nothing is certain – schedules are still be worked out and all that – they are looking to land Mr. Obama to back-to-back appearances on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, “Meet the Press” on NBC, and “Face the Nation” on CBS. No word on Fox or CNN.
And he’s going to be Jay Leno’s new show’s first guest, too.
If you think Obama’s been on TV a whole lot, you’re correct:
As of his seven-month in office mark in August, he had done 114 interviews, compared to 37 by former President George W. Bush and 41 by former president Bill Clinton at a similar point in their administrations
Let’s see, Obama was inaugurated on January 20. It’s September 14. That makes it a total of 237 days in office so far. 114 divided by 237 = .48, which means Obama’s averaging a speech every other day.
Cafe Hayek explains why arguing for the outcome is not enough:
Obama is treating financial regulation the same way he treats health care regulation–as if good intentions are sufficient to encourage support for a policy whose outcome is specified (”better health system,” “more stable financial system”) but where the details for achieving the outcome are left unspecified.
But the devil is in the details. Without those details, no policy or legislation can be evaluated. Good intentions are never enough. Some find it they are actually the road not to a better health care or financial system, but to a much warmer place.
Arguing for outcomes–”We have to cut health care costs” or no more “reckless behavior and unchecked excess”—while not telling us how he plans to achieve these outcomes, is audacious in all the wrong ways. It suggests we’re not wise enough to notice the lack of a legisative road map to achieve the desired policy outcome.
Jonah Goldberg says, At some point this White House is going to have to realize that “more Obama” isn’t the answer to every problem.
While I agree with Johan that “more Obama” isn’t the answer to every problem, I strongly suspect that the White House won’t be realizing that for a long, long time.
