Obama on '60 Minutes': Did he accept enough blame?

&quot;The party in power was held responsible for an economy that is still under-performing,&quot; said Obama in response to the Republican election sweep.

(Image credit: YouTube)

last updated 8 January 2015

In a closely watched "60 Minutes" appearance, President Obama called last week's election a referendum on the economy — not his policies. (Watch an excerpt of the interview below.) Obama did say his own communication problems were partly to blame for Americans' dissatisfaction, and for the "shellacking" Democrats took in the midterms. But some observers were unimpressed with Obama's take on the public's mood. Here's what three commentators had to say:

Obama just sounded defeated: The president sure sounded "uninspiring," says Adam Hanft at Salon. He needs to find some middle ground between the uplifting, campaign-trail Obama and the "contrite, emotionally-neutered, humble Obama we saw" on "60 Minutes." If he "can't find a consistent voice," the president is in big trouble.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

In fact, communication is the least of Obama's problems: Obama thinks more Americans would embrace his policies if they only understood them, says Mark Hemingway at the San Francisco Examiner, but that is a "terrible excuse" for his dwindling popularity. Blaming communication problems for a bad day at the polls is "a convenient way to avoid confronting the possibility that people do understand your policies and don't like them."

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox