A solid "B" from Barack...

I streamed the first press conference yesterday, and while it was a much more workman-like effort than his rhetorical efforts on the campaign trail, he's doing a great job of reassuring the American people (well, OK, reassuring me). I'm amused that the one word the idiot pundits kept using to describe his performance yesterday is "presidential". You'd think, well duh, he's president-elect, right? But perhaps we need to think less about the soft bigotry of low expectations and more about the harsh reality of the past eight years with NO expectations. And while I was going to insert a harsh joke here about Barbara Bush taking thalidomide or painting the baby's room with Lowe's Extra-Lead Sealant, in the interests of moving forward and getting away from the rhetoric that's divided our country, I'll just say that I think we can all agree that verbal communication isn't one of Dubya's strong suits.

But comparing Obama to Dubya is too easy; on his own terms, he could have been better. He seemed a little tired, and was understandably a bit more vague than I would have liked. I think the off the cuff jokes were unnecessary, and also perhaps belied that he was a bit tired.

But the overriding impression I got from his press-conference was the same one I grew to have as the campaign went on: "This cat's got his shit together." My favorite moment was when he stated that if a new stimulus package doesn't get put together during the lame duck session, he'll do it in January. Unlike Bush, whose plans always reminded me of my students who clearly put a paper together at 3 in the morning the night before the due date and then whined about how hard they worked, Obama is thinking things through. AND WHAT A FUCKING RELIEF WE'VE GOT SOMEONE DOING THAT!!

So good start, Barack, just make sure you get rest, too.

Oh, by the way, the reporters, who spent the entire Bush administration feeding him moronic softball questions and right-wing talking points, showed their maturity by feeding Obama moronic softball questions and right-wing talking points. So, some things still stay the same...