Barack Obama: 'Back on track in 2010'

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Barack Obama: 'Back on track in 2010'

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, who famously has given himself a "solid B-plus'' for his first year in office, was asked if he would like to reconsider that in the aftermath of a Christmas Day bombing attempt on a U.S.-bound airliner that exposed a lapse in U.S. intelligence.

"When you look at what we've done this year on national security, we've performed at a very high level in as difficult an environment as you can imagine,'' Obama says in a White House interview with the first couple about the first year that People magazine has conducted. "Sadly, the intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security communities don't get credit when they stop things.... I'm holding myself and my team responsible for fixing that situation.''

His inauguration "was such a time of hope,'' People interviewers Larry Hackett and Sandra Sobieraj Westfall reminded the president -- what does he say "to the people who now are feeling a little deflated?''

"They have every right to feel deflated because the economy was far worse than any of us expected,'' Obama replies. "The economy is now growing. We're on the rebound. Some of the steps we took are now paying off and people should feel great confidence that we are going to be back on track in 2010.''

One must get past the cover story of Heidi Montag's "addiction to plastic surgery,'' and the "torment" of Tiger Woods tp get to the exclusive interview with the Obamas, their first of the new year, in the Jan. 25 issue of People: People interview.pdf

But once there, we find the president's two proudest moments of the past 12 months:

"Having a health-care bill through the House and the Senate is a potentially historic accomplishment. I'll be that much prouder when I actually sign it.'' The other: "Happens every single night when I have dinner with my girls and see how well they've adjusted.''

"We've tried to keep their day-to-day life pretty ordinary,'' First Lady Michelle Obama says in the interview, though meeting the Pope and walking through the Kremlin were hardly ordinary experiences. The president recalls Sasha strolling through the Kremlin on a cold and rainy day with a trenchcoat. "She looked like a little spy,'' the president jokes. "We called her Agent 99.''

Inasmuch as the president had given himself that B-plus in a Christmas special with Oprah Winfrey, how about the first lady's self-assessment? "No way am I grading myself,'' she says in the interview. "I'll give her an A,'' her husband says. "Way to go.''

They talk about their favorite movies -- he liked Avatar and Away We Go. And they talk about their iPods...

(President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are pictured in the Blue Room of the White House before a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony in August, in a White House photo by Pete Souza.)

She likes "this young woman Ledisi. She's got that really pretty voice. I always put on oldies. I put on some Motown remix, going back to the roots.''

"My iPod is kind of stuck,'' the president says. "I just haven't had time to sit down at a computer.'' Pressed on that: Isn't there someone who can take care of that for him? Reggie Love, his personal aide, is always there, the president says. "But then all I get is Jay-Z, and I love Jay-Z, but once in a while I might want some Yo-Yo Ma or something.''

So has he found the White House a lonely life?

"I still have not adjusted, and I hope never to adjust entirely, to being in the bubble,'' the president says. "Day-to-day spontaneous interactions are missing from my life. And there's the aspect of loneliness that just has to do with the fact that sending young men and women to war -- ultimately that's your decision. If there's an attempted terrorist attack, you've got to fix it.

"That side of the loneliness of the job is what I signed up for,'' Obama says, "and I actually think I'm pretty good at.''

Standard & Poor's Lowers California's Debt Rating

Standard & Poor's on Wednesday lowered its rating on California's $64 billion general obligation debt from "A" to "A-." That's the lowest rating for any state. The move puts pressure on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers to tackle the state's deficit.