From Newsbusters:

George Washington was the father of our country.

Eh! No big deal. Barack Obama is better…at least in his own mind. Such was the laughably absurd claim of President Obama on 60 Minutes last Sunday. What? You didn’t see it? That was because 60 Minutes conveniently left it out of its broadcast. If you want to see Obama engage in this latest bit of over the top braggadocio you can only see it at the online 60 Minutes Overtime which has a video of the entire interview. You can catch Obama’s excessive praise of himself at the tail end of the interview starting with Steve Kroft’s question just before the 55 minute mark:

KROFT: Tell me, what do you consider your major accomplishments? If this is your last speech. What have you accomplished?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we’re not done yet. I’ve got five more years of stuff to do. But not only saving this country from a great depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we’re gonna start lowering health care costs and you’re never gonna go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts, and the system is more stable and secure. Making sure that we’ve got millions of kids out here who are able to go to college because we’ve expanded student loans and made college more affordable. Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. Restoring America’s respect around the world.

The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re gonna keep on at it.

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President Bush on Irish television a few years back:

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President Obama agreed to a FOX News interview in the 11th hour of his big push toward a healthcare bill in order to reach FOX’s audience of Democrats and Independents. A few of us wondered if the network would, in appreciation for the President temporarily lifting his embargo of FOX, stage a milk toast interview and lob softball questions. After all, when FOX’s Bill “I’m lookin’ out for the folks” O’Reilly finally landed an interview with candidate Obama, it was an innocuous non-event.

But in this latest FOX interview, Bret Baier showed us how a genuine professional TV journalist works.

It was clearly the President’s intent to filibuster most of the approximately 15 minutes devoted to the healthcare bill, repeating all the same talking points we’ve heard ad nauseum for a year. Obama never intended to directly answer Baier’s questions. That strategy was, to use a favorite word of his administration, transparent. (more…)

So…  what did you think? Or “deem?” Or…?

As the Poet said:

Of Man’s Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav’nly Muse,that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos…

Fox videos linked here and here.

Extra points if you can explain the “Hawaiian earthquake.”

Bonus question: will this interview — already being widely panned — turn out to be the thing that sinks “health-care reform”?

I’ve interviewed many celebrities, politicians and sports stars over the years. I’ve grilled George Soros, been threatened by Mike Tyson and had fun with Jason Alexander. I’ve never interviewed a President of the United States, but I’d welcome the opportunity and the responsibility. Who wouldn’t? During his first year in office, Barack Obama did 158 “exclusive” interviews. I don’t know how you do 158 “exclusives,” but basically that means he sat down, one-on-one with everybody from Katie Couric to Al Jazeera. Al Roker never got an exclusive, but there’s plenty of time this new year to make that happen.

Since many people have gotten on that “exclusive” list, I’d like to give it a shot. We can do it when he comes to Las Vegas, or I’d foot the bill to fly to his place in D.C. to make it happen. If the President wants the questions in advance, I’d tell him to read this column, I’ll put some of them here. I’ve never been one to put questions in writing before I do an interview, certainly not for the person I’m interviewing, and I’ve never really even done it for myself, so this is rather unique for me to put this much planning into an interview.

But if I had fifteen minutes with the President, I’d ask him some question that he’s probably never been asked by my friends in the activist old media who have actually gotten the opportunity to talk to him and pretty much wasted it. So, here goes, my questions for the President: (more…)