'Enchanted'? Twitterverse Pounces

NYT journo's query on Obama's feelings 'genius,' 'navel-gazing'
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 30, 2009 9:04 AM CDT

One question from last night’s presidential press conference has pundits and Twitterers buzzing: A reporter asked President Obama what “surprised,” “troubled,” “enchanted,” and “humbled” him about the office. “I thought the Miss USA Pageant was *last* week,” read one Tweet cited by the Christian Science Monitor. Reporters first mocked the “laughable question”—then decided the New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny was a “secret genius,” Gawker says.

Obama pulled out a pen to write down Zeleny's four-part question, then answered, offering America “a chance to see the man think on his feet,” writes Carl Cannon in Politics Daily, who breaks down Obama’s response. He is:

  • “suprised” by “the number of critical issues” hitting simultaneously.
  • “sobered,” rather than troubled, by continued “bickering” at a key moment.
  • “humbled” by the fact that the presidency is just one of many centers of US power.
  • “enchanted” by—or, better, “profoundly impressed and grateful” to—the troops.
(More media stories.)

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