Head Strong: 'So, Mr. President, ... seen any good movies?'
8.23.09
By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist
I hadn't prepared to make small talk with the president of the United States. But he arrived early.
It's the stuff of cocktail parties and holiday gatherings - the conversation you make with people you haven't seen since last New Year's Eve. Most people expect me to be adept at this sort of thing, given that I host two talk radio programs each day.
The truth is, I'm no life of the party. Come September, I'll be the guy hiding in the corner at back-to-school get-togethers, clutching a canapé and groping a Scotch, hoping nobody wants to talk to me about the news of the day.
I'd been prepared for a late arrival by the POTUS. But when word came that "Renegade" was "on the move," I wasn't ready. The president soon arrived for his first live radio interview from the White House, five or six minutes ahead of schedule. Suddenly, I faced the task of shooting the breeze with the most powerful man in the world.
We were seated in the Diplomatic Reception Room, best known as the setting of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats. Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian and author, told me the room owes its decor and famous panoramic wallpaper to Jacqueline Kennedy. "What you're seeing where you're at is the opening up of the White House, where particularly Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt wanted it to be more of a people's house," Brinkley told me. It was a pretty heady environment.
The White House press corps was stanchioned 20 feet away. Behind me was the White House China Room. On the other side of the wall in front of me was the famed Map Room, where FDR studied World War II geography. (I know because I used the men's room in there.)
On the floor out of sight were a pair of headphones and my forthcoming book about Jose Melendez-Perez, a bona fide American hero of 9/11. The headset was supposed to be for the president. But the White House got one look at it - in a picture we had snapped and sent earlier in the day - and nixed it.
The book? I intended to give it to the president at the end of our conversation. Fine, the White House said, but it had to be out of the camera shot. So it was.
With the president at my side and commercials still running, I launched into the family portion of the program. I showed him a picture of my son (taken with a BlackBerry) from an Obama campaign whistle-stop in Bryn Mawr. The president signed it: "To Wilson, Dream big dreams."
We talked about our kids before we got to "Cash for Clunkers." He commented on my suit before I asked about Secretary Sebelius. He mentioned repairs in the West Wing before the role of personal responsibility in health-care reform.
Then I told him my sons had seen the movie National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, which concerns a national book of secrets seen only by presidents, telling of such things as alien life and the Kennedy assassination. I told the president that our boys wanted to know which secret was most impressive. His eyes told me he'd seen the movie, no doubt spurred by his daughters.
"I would tell you," he said, "but I'd have to kill you."
Finally, the interview began. I asked him whether Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, "misspoke" when she said a government health-insurance option wasn't essential. I wondered, on behalf of many listeners, whether the administration's goal was ultimately a single-payer system. He responded to skeptics who wonder if health-care reform is another step, along with the bank and auto bailouts, toward unimpeded government involvement in our lives.
From there, I managed to fit in questions about "Cash for Clunkers," the release of the Lockerbie bomber, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Callers asked whether the president and Congress would join the public option and if it would cover illegal immigrants. A Philadelphia listener and Obama supporter named Joe wondered whether the president's knees were "buckling" on health reform. A woman from New York questioned him about the states' role in the reform effort.
I was promised a 20-minute interview. Obama was in front of the microphone for close to 30, including the chitchat. I'll leave the full postmortem to others. Frankly, I'm not sure the experience has settled in enough for me to analyze it.
Obama's remarks will be rehashed and reevaluated until something else emerges to dominate our insatiable news cycle. Indeed, almost immediately, the New York Times had honed in on his remarks about the Lockerbie bomber. The Los Angeles Times led with his guarantee that "we are going to get health-care reform done."
The Associated Press and Politico.com, however, weren't totally focused on "Cash for Clunkers" or health care. "Shhh . . . Obama mum on what's in 'book of secrets,' " read the AP headline Friday morning. Politico posted video of that exchange. And Inside Edition was calling my house for an interview on his reaction to the movie.
Maybe my small talk is getting better.
Michael Smerconish's column appears Thursdays in the Daily News and Sundays in Currents. He can be heard 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210) and contacted via www.smerconish.com