Obama's First Press Conference: The U.S. Has One President at a Time

Barack Obama's press conference, which was to held at 1:30 CST, was expected to carry an economic bent, and it did. With the global economy in a seeming recession, and today's labor report showing the highest unemployment numbers in 14 years (at 6.5%), many are looking to Obama for both leadership and a hint to what his plans are.

Unfortunately, Obama didn't show any change in terms of promptness of press conferences. He was pretty late to his conference. Obama was joined onstage by a number of people, his advisory staff, transition team, and Rahm Emanuel --- and naturally Joe Biden.

Obama's press conference started with the obvious fact that Bush is still President, and thus he cannot do anything until after January 20th. While the Bush administration has control until then. The key phrase, and one he repeated over and over: The U.S. has one President at a time.

Obama continued, saying Bush has agreed to keep his team appraised of their decisions with regards to the economic crisis, but until January 20th, he will be only a listener, not a doer.

Then, Obama outlined what he wants to look at between now and then.

• A rescue plan for the middle-class, investing in immediate efforts to create jobs and provide relief to families that are "watching their paychecks shrink and their life sazings disappear."
• An extension of unemployment insurance benefits
• Fiscal stimulus plan to jump-start economic growth
• Address the spreading impact of the crisis on other sectors: small retailers and state and municipalities facing budget problems
• Remember the issues are global, and face them on a global basis
• Address the issues of the auto industry, which affects not just the companies themselves, but also suppiers and others who depend on the industry (he was joined by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has an obvious stake in this)
• Review the Bush administration financial rescue program to ensure the plan is achieving its goal of stabilizing financial markets while protecting taxpayers, helping homeowners, and not rewarding the corporations at the heart of the crisis
• The Treasury Dept. needs to work carefully with FDIC, HUD to help families avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes
• Move forward with policies to grow middle class and strengthen economy in the long term. They cannot wait to address those policies he mentioned during the campaign, such as clean energy, health care, education, tax relief for middle class families.

His transition team will work on these priorities in the weeks ahead, and will reconvene the same Advisory Board to discuss the best ideas to respond to the immediate problems.

Obama closed the prepared portion of the press conference with the following statement:

I do not underestimate the enormity of the task that lies ahead. We have taken some major action to date and we will need further action during this transition and subsequent months. Some of the choices that we make are going to be difficult, and I have said before and I will repeat again: it is not going to be quick, it is not going to be easy to dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in. But America is a strong and resilient country, and I know we will succeed, if we put aside partisanship and politics and work together as one nation. That's what I intend to do.

In the Q and A session, there was a rather lame question regarding the congratulatory message sent to Obama by Iranian president Ahmadinejad. While some have made a big issue over this, it should be noted that Obama emphasized clearly he would stand tough in his response.

I am aware the letter was sent. Let me state, repeat what I stated during the course of the campaign. Iran's development of nuclear weapon (It is nice to have a President smart enough to pronounce nuclear properly. The nucular era is over.), I believe, is unacceptable and we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening. Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease. I will be reviewing the letter from Pres. Ahmadinejad and we will respond appropriately. It's only been 3 days since the election; obviously how we approach and deal with a country like Iran is not something we should simply do in a knee-jerk fashion. I think we've got to think it through, but I have to reiterate once again that we only have one President at a time and I want to be very careful that we are sending the right signals to the world as a whole that I am not the President and I won't be until Jan. 20th.

When asked if he had a conflict with The Decider (reporter's term, not mine)'s decisions, what would he do, Obama replied as such in the press conference:

Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to meet with him and first lady Laura Bush. We are gratified by the invitation. I'm sure that in addition to taking a tour of the White House there's going to be a substantive conversation between myself and the President. I am going to anticipate problems. I am going to go in there with a spirit of bipartisanship and a sense that both the President and various leaders in Congress all recognize the severity of the situation right now and want to get stuff done. And, undoubtedly there may end up being differences between not just members of different parties but between people within the same party. The critical point and the critical tone that has to be struck by all of us involved right now is the American people need help. This economy is in bad shape, and we have just completed one of the longest election cycles in recorded history. Now is a good time for us to set politics aside for a while and think practically about what will actually work to move the economy forward and it's in that spirit that I will have the conversation with the President.

The final and the most interesting one was given by Lynn Sweet. Lynn Sweet asked a few non-financial questions, and nicely, Obama noticed that she had an injured arm, which apparently she hurt on the evening of the Election, rushing to Grant Park for his speech.

The one question was about the dog, which Obama said has engendered more interest than just about any other subject on his new change.gov website.

With respect the dog, this is a major issue. I think it's generated more interest on the website than just about anything. We have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypoallegenic. On the other hand our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but obviously a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me. So whether we're going to balance those two things I think is a pressing issue on the Obama household.

Therew as a tax question, of course. As we recall his tax plan was a reduction for the middle class, and an increase for those in higher income brackets. Let's also remember that McCain's plan would have decreased taxes for millionairs. His statement:

My tax plan represented a net tax cut. It provided for substantial middle class tax cuts, 9% of working Americans would receive them. It also provided for cuts in capital gains for small businesses, additional tax credits, all of it is designed for job growth. My priority is going to be how do we grow the economy; how do we create more jobs. I think that the plan that was put forward is the right one, but obviously over the next several weeks and months we are going to be continuing to take a look at the data and see what's taking place in the economy as a whole. But understand the goal of my plan is to provide tax relief to families that are struggling but also to boost the capacity of the economy to grow from the bottom up.

He concluded at that point. There was quite a bit of substance to the conference. No further appointments were made, but that was more detail than most expected. We'll see what happens when Obama and his wife meet with Bush and his wife, on Monday.