Obama Press Conference

I'm playing catch up on posts. This past week was a busy one.

I was able to see most of it. I think I missed the first question. One of the things I liked was that Obama didn't call on the same people who always seem to ask the questions. For instance there was the correspondent from Stars and Stripes. I think this brought in a wider range of questions then you would normally hear generally. I don't think anyone would have asked about Mexico.

I also like his response, to what I thought was a rather silly question, on AIG about how long it took him to respond:

QUESTION: But on AIG, why did you wait -- why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage? It seems like the action is coming out of New York and the attorney general's office. It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, "Look, we're outraged." Why did it take so long?

OBAMA: It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.

Now there's a change from the last president we had.

Finally, I was really impressed by the answer to the last question. Obama said in part:

That whole philosophy of persistence, by the way, is one that I'm going to be emphasizing again and again in the months and years to come as long as I'm in this office. I'm a big believer in persistence.

I think that, when it comes to domestic affairs, if we keep on working at it, if we acknowledge that we make mistakes sometimes, and that we don't always have the right answer, and we're inheriting very knotty problems, that we can pass health care, we can find better solutions to our energy challenges, we can teach our children more effectively, we can deal with a very real budget crisis that is not fully dealt with in my -- in my budget at this point, but makes progress.

I liked that he said he would keep going after a problem. But he admitted he might make some mistakes and not have all the right answer.

To me that shows the flexibility needed to be a great leader.