What Everyone Missed In President Obama’s Big ‘Meet The Press’ Interview

Freshly-minted Meet The Press moderator Chuck Todd scored a huge exclusive for his debut, and President Obama didn’t disappoint in his one-on-one with the longtime NBC News Chief White House Correspondent. The President covered a wide variety of headline-grabbing topics, but one of the things he said isn’t getting nearly enough attention.

In terms of “Stop the presses!” breaking news, the President confirmed reports that he will delay executive action on immigration until after the midterms, but before the end of the year. Let’s just say that, like many liberals, I’m not a fan of this move. The theory is that taking action now could energize conservative base voters in states with vulnerable Democrats, but the flaw in that logic is that you can’t get harder than diamond. The President gave every anti-immigrant base voter a DefCon “call your doctor” stiffie in June when he promised to take action at the end of the summer, and telling them he’s still going to do it isn’t about to make that thing go down.

President Obama explained that the decision had nothing to do with protecting vulnerable Democrats, but about crossing Ts and explaining to Americans why we didn’t just send Central American kids right back home to be murdered (well, not all of them).

For some reason, the President also talked about Americans’ fears over the Ebola outbreak, even though the disease is surprisingly nonlethal when a white American gets it. He also  addressed the all-important topic of golf, acknowledging that he “should’ve anticipated the optics” of golfing after making a statement on the killing of Jim Foley, but also pointed out that “the important thing is in addition to that, is am I getting the policies right? Am I protecting the American people? Am I doing what’s necessary?”

Then, there was an extended exchange over ISIS, Iraq, and Syria, most of which was a recap of news that emerged this past week regarding our plans to “degrade and destroy” and to “ultimately defeat” the terrorist army of asshole coal-rollers. One aspect of this story that’s been getting little attention is the fact that the White House has consistently posited that the President doesn’t actually need permission from Congress to act in Syria, a point that Obama reiterated to Chuck Todd.

“I’m confident that I have the authorization that I need to protect the American people,”the President told Chuck. “And I’m always going to do what’s necessary to protect the American people. But I do think it’s important for Congress to understand what the plan is, to have buy in, to debate it.”

Toward the end of that exchange, though, the President also rolled out…READ MORE

Click here for reuse options!
Copyright 2014 Liberaland