CHARLIE ROSE: Joining me now "Newsweek’s" Jonathan Alter. He has
written a new book about President Obama. It is called "The Promise --
President Obama, Year One." He interviewed more than 200 people, including
the president and top aides like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, and Valerie
Jarrett.
I am pleased to have him back at that this table. Welcome.
JONATHAN ALTER: Thanks, Charlie.
CHARLIE ROSE: Look at what’s happening today in the handling of the
oil spill. How do you assess it?
JONATHAN ALTER: Well, I think it showed he has poor political
reflexes, or at least insufficiently quick reflexes. And that, you know,
has been a bit of a problem.
The oil spill is almost a perfect metaphor for the Obama
administration in this sense, that so much of what he’s had to do is clean
up Bush’s messes, all right? So on Wall Street, the auto industry, the
bank bailouts, Afghanistan was a Bush mess that went worse. This is
another Bush mess.
You had regulators, Charlie, Bush-era regulators in the Denver office
of the Minerals Management Services who literally -- not figuratively --
literally were sleeping with the people they were supposed to be
regulating.
See the full interview here. Read the full transcript here. See also: The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
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