NEW YORK — Just two days before key primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, the peculiar ritual of the Sunday news show took on high drama as Barack Obama and Hil lary Rodham Clinton made hour-long solo appearances — Obama on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Clinton on ABC’s “This Week.”
For Obama, the grilling by host Tim Russert offered an opportunity to put the uproar surrounding his former pastor behind him. For Clinton, the town-hall-style appearance gave her the chance to burnish her populist message and persuade skeptical voters to like and trust her.
Obama keeps cool
Obama has been forced to contend with explosive comments made by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama denounced the remarks last week and was pressed further on that matter and other issues Sunday. Throughout it all, he was a virtual Zen master — displaying the calm self-confidence that has long made him seem both unflappable and aloof.
Knowing of Wright’s previous remarks, why did Obama break from Wright only after his appearance in Washington last week? Russert asked.
“I thought it was important for him to explain or at least to provide context for some of the things he said previously,” Obama said, adding that Wright’s news conference only made things worse.
“Not only did he amplify some of those comments and defend them vigorously, he added to it. He put gasoline on the fire,” Obama said. “Not only was he interested in using this platform to make statements I fundamentally disagree with and offend me, he didn’t have much regard for the moment we’re in right now in the United States.”
Obama said it was fair for voters to question his judgment in light of the Wright controversy, but he said he hoped they would do so in the context of his overall career. And he said he would remain a member at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, where Wright recently stepped down as pastor.
“My commitment is to Christ, not to Rev. Wright,” Obama said.
Obama showed a bit more passion when asked whether he would be vulnerable to a “Swift Boat”-style attack on his patriotism if he were to face Republican John McCain in the fall.
“I have never challenged other people’s patriotism,” he said. “I haven’t challenged Hil lary Clinton’s or John McCain’s, and I will not stand by and allow somebody else to challenge mine.”
He called Clinton’s proposed gas-tax holiday a “pander” and her vow to “obliterate” Iran if it attacked Israel nothing more than unhelpful bluster.
Clinton, for her part, turned in a feisty performance on “This Week” — at turns funny, combative and wonky. In contrast with Obama’s coolheaded demeanor, Clinton was at times almost overeager — wide-eyed and smiling, rejecting an armchair in favor of standing and gesturing to the audience.
Clinton stands firm
“I think we’ve been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven’t worked well for the middle class and hardworking Americans,” Clinton said when pressed on why no prominent economists support the gas-tax holiday. “I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”
She stuck to her guns even as an audience member said she felt “pandered to” by the gas-tax holiday plan.
Clinton insisted she had opposed NAFTA during her husband’s presidency, although there is little evidence to suggest she worked against it at the time.
