I thought Obama's press conference last night was very interesting and also
very revealing, now having 100 days under his belt.

A few impressions:

Very much in command and demonstrating superb leadership qualities.
(I have to admit, I misjudged him during the campaign cycle)

Expressed a new level (for him) of respect and understanding of military
personnel from top to bottom in terms of their commitment, professionalism
and pride in doing their job, however distasteful. I found this
particularly interesting because although he has paid the obligatory
tributes before, last night's comments had a different tone and respect.
It's as if he has learned something in the past 100 days. Good for him!

Although on the record of opposing it (and outlawing it) he is still
struggling with the use of torture question. It's obvious. He's still
reading specific past rationales of it's use or not by other world leaders.
At one point he was specifically asked if he would authorize torture if he
knew a major attack on the US was imminent and the torture of someone would
provide the information required to advert the attack. His answer was
complex. The first words out of his mouth was that "First of all, I will
do anything required to protect the people of the USA". (paraphrased) But
then he went on to say that the USA needs to maintain a moral high ground
and that options other than torture are available.

But. He did *not* rule torture out. His acknowledged first priority is to
protect the USA and it's people, and he will do "anything required" to
accomplish that. Interesting.

It's a tough one, and again he is demonstrating a level of understanding and
wisdom that only comes with having the reigns of responsibility in one's two
hands. He's beginning to realize that now *he* is the decider, not the
polls, media comments, Olbermann and other armchair generals.

Those of us in the media reporting and analyzing and those of us armchair
critics cannot possibly understand the pressure on someone like the POTUS in
deciding these types of questions.

As a commenter pointed out, the chance of the USA using a nuclear device on
another country is virtually zero. However, the concept that they *could*
be used have never been removed from the table.

Final observation. Pakistan. Obama has identified the Taliban in and
around Pakistan as a major potential threat because they could gain control
of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. He commented that we can "not allow" a band
of rouge, militant groups to establish political control over a government
whose country has nuclear weapons at their disposal.

Hmmmm. This sounds familiar. Indeed, Obama has had a crash course in
the "real" world in the past 100 days.

Believe it or not, it's for these reasons that my confidence in his
abilities to be a good, strong POTUS, while still pursuing a goal of
diffusing world conflicts has gone up significantly.

I am still having problems with his plans for fixing the economy however.
Can't afford it.

Over and out.

Eisboch