I liked this exchange at last night’s press conference between the president and Ann Compton:
Q: Could I ask you about race?
OBAMA: You may.
Q: Yours is a rather historic presidency. And I’m just wondering whether in any of the policy debates that you’ve had within the White House, the issue of race has come up, or whether it has in the way you feel you’ve been perceived by other leaders or by the American people. Or has the last 64 days been a relatively colorblind time?
OBAMA: I think that the last 64 days has been dominated by me trying to figure out how we’re going to fix the economy. And that’s — affects black, brown and white. And, you know, obviously at the inauguration I think that there was justifiable pride on the part of the country that we had taken a step to move us beyond some of the searing legacies of racial discrimination in this country. But that lasted about a day — (laughter) — and, you know, right now the American people are judging me exactly the way I should be judged, and that is are we taking the steps to improve liquidity in the financial markets, create jobs, get businesses to reopen, keep America safe. And that’s what I’ve been spending my time thinking about.