The Obamas on ‘Access Hollywood’

Barack Obama granted his first family interview, including his wife and two young daughters, to the syndicated gossip show “Access Hollywood,” said Jake Trapper in ABC News’ Political Punch blog, and if you think that an inappropriate venue, “you are not alone.” Obama himself now says the family got “carried away,” and that exposing his kids to the media like that “won’t happen again.”

Too late, said the blog JammieWearingFool. After showing he’s “willing to pimp” his kids out to “Access Hollywood,” Obama has no standing to whine about his family not getting any privacy.

Putting his kids on TV may have been “another brilliant/cynical switcheroo” by Obama, “depending on your politics,” said Guy Rundle in the Vox blog Day by Day, but “God, it was good.” The Obamas look “young, vigorous, beautiful,” and despite any criticism he gets, this interview will probably “go down in history as Obama’s Kennedy moment.”

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In fact, “the only wonder of it is that Obama gets all this for free,” said Kevin Drum in Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog. With puffball questions, “everyone is guaranteed to look good,” and you reach millions of politically disengaged viewers—a John McCain interview can’t be too far behind, “unless he’s dumb enough to turn them down.”