Why 0bama bombed on 60 Minutes

It's been 8 long years, and finally the media is asking the president some hard questions, and not the fluff he usually gets.

Kroft's cross-examination: Why 0bama bombed on '60 Minutes'

By Howard Kurtz

There was an unmistakable moment when Steve Kroft took control of his interview with President 0bama. And the president never got it back.

It was pretty obvious that 0bama did not have a good outing on "60 Minutes." And perhaps there is a larger lesson about the media and the 44^th president, coming as even the Democrat candidates to succeed him are trying to distance themselves from what would otherwise be viewed as a third 0bama term.

Kroft has been 0bama's go-to guy since he was a candidate, and some of those interviews have been a bit on the soft side. I have great respect for Kroft as an aggressive journalist, and here he was at his finest.

The veteran CBS correspondent was pressing 0bama about the fiasco in Syria in the wake of Russia's military intervention. He turned to the administration's $500-million program to train and equip 5,000 of the so-called moderate Syrian rebels—which, according to a top commander, did so for only 50. With most of them now dead or having deserted, 0bama has just ended the effort.

0bama replied that he had been "skeptical" of the program. Why, then, Kroft asked, did he go through with it?

The president said he had to "try different things."

"I know you don't want to talk about this," Kroft said, drawing a presidential denial.

It was a "serious miscalculation," Kroft said. A moment later, he interrupted 0bama: "It's an embarrassment."

That was the moment, prompting this presidential admission: "Look, there's no doubt that it did not work." And after a long answer, Kroft complained: "I feel like I'm being filibustered, Mr. President."

At another point, when 0bama argued that Vladimir Putin was bombing in Syria out of weakness, Kroft shot back: "He's challenging your leadership."

And in a second segment, Kroft got 0bama to acknowledge that Hillary Clinton had made a mistake using private email, even as the president deflected other questions and said he didn't believe national security had been breached.

All this is quite a contrast to that all-smiles session that Kroft did with 0bama and Clinton when she was stepping down as secretary of State and they sung each other's praises.

Now obviously it's easier to be tough on a president at the end of his seventh year because there aren't many more exclusive interviews to be gotten. And it's easier to push back on a president who's not popular and is presiding over an unmitigated mess in the Middle East.

One reason we haven't seen more of this, in my view, is that the president hasn't exposed himself to many television interviews with journalists like Kroft. He mainly talks to liberal sympathizers and amusing characters. So 0bama has sat down with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, with Chris Matthews, with Jon Stewart, with Vice, with YouTube cereal bather Glozell Green, with Zak Galifinakis, and with Marc Maron, who does his "WTF" podcast out of his garage.

That's his privilege, and a sign of not having to run again.

The CBS sitdown comes at a time when the media and political debate has shifted to his successor. When Kroft asked about Donald Trump, 0bama called him a "great publicity-seeker" who will not be the next president (Trump responded on Fox, calling the interview "terrible.")

The president's lame-duck status will be evident at tonight's Democratic debate, when Hillary and Bernie Sanders will be competing to show that they are not 0bama—and in fact are to the left of 0bama.

"Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders promise different approaches from Mr. 0bama's, as much in style as in substance," the New York Times says. "Both have suggested they could get more accomplished, though Mrs. Clinton does so in more oblique terms." 

As we get into 2016, 0bama may decide to use selected interviews to defend and define his legacy as it comes under frontal attack from Republican candidates, and more implicitly by Democratic candidates.

There's also a media shift late in an administration from what an incumbent plans to do to what he has actually accomplished.

If Steve Kroft's interview is any indication, the president may face some rougher questioning than he has in the past.