Who'll answer tonight's questions -- Pres. Obama or Sen. Obama?

When President Barack Obama walks before the cameras on national TV this evening for his second formal White House news conference (5 p.m. Pacific), we'll all get the latest retweaked version of his main economic message: a little more hope than gloom, more push for his (overly?) ambitious budget plan and a repetition of Treasury's toxic asset plan from Monday.

Which the administration is trying to rename "legacy assets," because who advertises their home: "Used House 4 Sale"? And, let's be honest here, who wants to buy financial Superfund sites?

Obama and his political advisor, David Axelrod, are clearly trying to maintain or regain control of the political debate, depending on your view of last week's road show. The message of the president's warm reception at his two California town halls was in the end overshadowed by his clumsy Special Olympics crack on Jay Leno.

Americans clearly are ready to like the president. They're still drawing first impressions. His poll numbers have slid a little more, still close to 60% but no longer closer to 70%.

By itself that gaffe, minimized by quick overnight damage control by phone from Air Force One, matters little in the long run. But coming as it did in a spontaneous moment on national TV, it played....

... right into critics' efforts to portray the smooth Obama as too dependent on words fed to him via teleprompter. They've even created a competing mocking website and Twitter accounts for Obama's teleprompter and over here.

All modern presidents have used teleprompters, but none as thoroughly as Obama, who employs them for even the most routine occasions. In the White House they're usually out of sight of tight TV shots and, when he's done, they collapse down low out of sight.

Remember, Obama's crack about Nancy Reagan seances, which also required a telephoned apology, came during an un-telepromptered moment at his first news conference as president-elect? It's all part of an unfolding debate, even among his Democratic supporters.

With the economy in dire straits and until Monday  no firm financial plan, with Treasury especially apparently experiencing such executive recruiting difficulties, should the president be out in the countryside still or again campaigning, which he usually does very well? On TV joking with Jay. Drawing up his own NCAA basketball brackets on ESPN (Jay joked last night that Obama did better picking basketball winners, getting 14 of the final 16 tournament teams, than he did picking his own Cabinet. Ouch!)

Or should the president be seen  being president, governing, with the campaigning over, addressing the nation's serious difficulties, even if he does have an Oval Office TV tuned to one of the games. Americans like their presidents to be human, But they also like them carrying a bit of elegant distance.

To that end, Obama's laughter and offhand mention of a possible seriously deep depression on his "60 Minutes" interview Sunday struck some as dissonance. As did his verbal assault on former Vice President Cheney's recent criticisms.

Yes, he was asked about them. And Obama's certainly entitled to defend himself. But in that much detail? Let's be brutally honest here: Except for Sunday TV shows' desperate search for Sabbath conflict and the ex-VP's own family, who cares what Dick Cheney has to say now? He's history.

The reason Obama went on about Cheney, of course, is that as long as Obama can keep the public and especially his own Democratic supporters on the left focused on the aging, albeit unifying, sins of the devil Bush years, the less anyone thinks to start comparing Obama promises to Obama actions in the present day.

The galactic deficits growing daily. The unfilled jobs. The growing entanglement in Afghanistan.

Remember a few weeks ago Obama brought Rush Limbaugh into the public debate, much to the conservative broadcaster's promotional delight? It made Democrats happy, but cost the Republicans absolutely nothing. What have they got to lose, having already lost everything in Washington? Why would a president, and then his spokesmen, fight down with a radio broadcaster?

And then for President Obama to "honor" Cheney with such a rebuttal, as correct as Obama may be within his debating points, reveals a startling defensiveness within the president, once thought of as supremely confident. More importantly and much more dangerously, such a tactic elevates Cheney and Cheney's dire warnings about national security under an Obama administration lax on national defense.

Sure, talking tough about Cheney makes Democrats feel good for the moment. If Cheney's wrong, no one will remember in a few months. But the victorious president still arguing with the departed vice president when he could have dismissed him with one or two sentences?

This strikes many as a short-sighted political strategy for Obama/Axelrod -- and a dangerous one. First, it elevates Cheney at no cost to the Republican.

But what happens if, heaven forbid, there is another successful terrorist attack on the homeland? Who'd look more politically prescient then -- the departed vice president or the rookie incumbent who defensively and unnecessarily called so much attention to those dire predictions way back now?

What Obama says -- or doesn't say -- about that tonight will be most revealing. (As usual, we'll have the complete news conference transcript overnight.)

-- Andrew Malcolm

This is your own prompt to register here now for automatic alerts via Twitter on each new Ticket item.

Of possible interest:

Obama's well-oiled road show; Obama apologizes for Special Olympics crack; Text of Obama's town hall meeting.

Photo credits: Associated Press (Obama with his ubiquitous teleprompter); Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times (Obama greets audience members after a Los Angeles town hall); Chip Somodeville / Getty Images (Obama with Vice President Biden uses telepropmpters again at a White House event).

Comments

[!salmoned]

Stimulus Hypocrisy. Who asked the tough questions on the Stimulus?

Where are the hearings on State irresponsibility and mismanagement, prior to doling out billions to States that have been inarguably irresponsible with their own budgets?
Where are the sensational televised public humiliation of one governor after another as they ask for the money and reveal how they will right size their State budgets to stand on their own in the future?

Where is the deadline for a formal plan of restructuring?
The answer to these questions is that none of that will happen. Despite the fact that the Auto Companies had to go through all of that to ask for far less, our Governors will not be asked to tell us how they will fix their State budgets long run or spend the stimulus.

This bodes ill for our State governments independence and self reliance. Any incentive those States had to make the hard choices to solve their problems long term, have been removed and there will be a precedent set to look to Washington for more money to solve self created deficits.

[markbyrn]

In supporting Obama, I expected bold moves and change on domestic and foreign policy. While he's taking on Limbaugh and Cheney, his own moves on Iraq, Afghanistan, and of course the economy are not significantly setting him apart from his predecessor, and that is a catastrophe we can't afford. Even when it comes to dealing with a smaller and more focused issues such as our perverse and hypocritical economic blockade of Cuba, he's perpetuating the status-quo of administrations going back 40 plus years. Without the real change that he promised during the election, we have no hope in hell.

[G Hugh Bodell]

Since Mr. Obama is making a pitch to his reluctant investor group, I would like to see an opening segment similar to a pitch to Venture Capitalists. Appropriate would be a PowerPoint presentation enumerating the trillions we have already invested, what we have invested them in, who has them and what the expected return will be.

Then he should enumerate the additional trillions he is asking for with the same investor like elements of information

Finally I would like to see the details of his exit strategy from this, the largest public funded investment in economic history.

I believe that this could be presented in a way that even the least sophisticated viewer would understand and could make a rational decision about their willingness to continue to fund this rather unclear administration strategy.

[Siam Erzuah]

Hey Andrew,

You and your types can crow, rant, rave and cry all you want. To those of us who voted for him, Barack is doing an excellent job. Your types will hate him and criticise him regardless of whatever he does. Taking on lunatic goons like Rush Limbaugh and Dick Chenney is good for the country. These people think their ideas hold supreme and anything anybody says is irrelevant. Didn't Dick Chenney predict that the US will find weapons of mass destruction? Didn't Dick Cheney say that we will be greeted enmass by the Iraqis? Didn't Dick Chenney and his cohorts say that Saddam Hussein knew something about 9 eleven? In all these predictions by Dick Chenney, tell me which one of them proved to be right?. This moron has no credibility and does not deserve to be given public place or space to vent out his nonesense. He took America to a war and killed thousand of our troops and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, all based on false excuses, and you are saying the president should not respond to such a war criminal. On Rush Limbaugh, this is a guy who cannot undertake a simple act of getting married and staying married. He went through three women and came out single. If a person cannot solve a simple problem such as his own marital problems, what shows he can solve the problems of a whole nation? That moron should solve his drug problem first before wishing failure on the president. This president had his own challenges early on in life, and he came out triumphant. And that is why those of us who voted for him are still supporting him and taking inspiration from him; for he is a story book story-- a success story worthy to be told to millions in posterity. And your types cannot derail him from saving this country, or millions of good, decent and intelligent Americans from supporting him. Nice try, but take your crooked analysis, which is nothing but a disguised hate somewhere else.

[david dial]

I think you are missing something very important. While there are folks on both extremes of the political spectrum who are absolutely certain they are right and everybody else is wrong, neither can achieve a majority or even consensus without drawing from the middle.

The Obama administration is asking congress and the public to take a huge leap of faith in both domestic and foreign policy. To succeed, a substantial majority of both bodies, the public and congress, must be willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt because no one "knows" these policies will work.

Most of us don't have either the time or the inclination to really do our homework. We are more likely to come down on one side or the other of an issue because we feel either very comfortable or very uncomfortable with it's proponents.

For President Obama to spotlight individuals who make most people in the middle of the political spectrum very uncomfortable and do it in a way that makes most of the same folks very comfortable with him is political genius.

Cheney and Limbaugh are revered by ten to fifteen percent of the public and despised by approximately an equal number. The beauty contest between them and their ideas and the President and his ideas will be decided by the other sixty to eighty percent. My money is on the President.

[Etherplain]

The man has been in office only a couple months and he's tackling a task roughly equal to the one facing FDR when he took office. Now is not the time to judge Obama by who he calls to the carpet or about his awkward sense of humor. Pay attention to what he's actually doing, what are his policies etc. and also we need to focus across the party line and see what the Republicans are really doing. I mean really, what are they doing??

Obama's biggest problem is that he came in with high-expectations in a climate that is most suited to low results.

[jon]

So boring how you GOPers whine about Pres Obama's few questionable gaffes. I know I'm surprised that during Bush's Presidency, you ignored his numerous daily gaffes.
Anything to try to take Pres Obama down, eh?
Ummm, Cheney had to be confronted, since he's spinning his garbage about decreasing domestic security.
No President is going to sit idly by, as an ex-VP challenges his duty to keep the Country safe.
If I were Cheney, I'd keep my mouth shut... because if he doesn't, Pres Obama might change his position on investigating Bush/Cheney War & Constitutional crimes, and just step out of the way, and appoint a Special Prosecutor. If Obama ever does that, Cheney is toast.

[CF]

It is quickly becoming apparent to many Americans (Zogby puts Obama's approval rating at 50%) that Obama is merely a media invention. He knows how to give a good speech with a teleprompter, yuck it up with comedians, and succor his own adorers.

Obama is really an empty suit. He is better designed to play as President in a movie or television show, than do the real thing.

Yes, I want Barack Obama to succeed...but only when he plays the President in season 10 of "24".

[captbilly]

Is this guy serious, Obama's big sin was making the comment about the Special Olympics, come on we have important issues to deal with. It was very important to comment on Cheney's remarks, not to debate Cheney, but to remind the American people haw we got into the mess we are in today. This isn't Obama's financial crisis, or his wars, both were created by Bush/Cheney, as were the supreme lack of confidence in Government institutions and suspicion of our intellegence agencies. Obama is faced with the unbelievably daunting task of cleaning up the enormous mess left by the most inept administration in US history.

Is it true that the American people will eventually forget who got us into this mess, probably, but it doesn't hurt to remind them from time to time that Obama is either going to be our savior or not, but he is not the cause of our problems. My own guess is that the US is headed down a long dark tunnel of debt and war. Can Obama find the light at the end of that tunnel, perhaps, but he didn't take us into the tunnel, and there may not be a light at the end for America. If the American people and Congress do not rally behind Obama and give him the chance to try and find a way out of this mess, then we are doomed to a spiral down to second world status. We have got to stop the endless cycle of campaigning and start to do the job of running America again.

[Readyfortherightwingroundup]

OMG, talk about misleading people, I believe what Obama focused on were the points that Chenie made, not the man himself.

[Frank Lester]

Barack Obama's words about Dick Cheney were a "verbal assault"? If you really felt that Cheney were irrelevant or, in your words, "history," then why in the world would it matter to you what Obama said about him? And why would Obama's words constitute a "verbal assault"? You cannot have it both ways, sir.