Obama Fields Softball Questions From KOB Radio DJs

No one expected KOB-FM’s “Morning Mayhem” radio hosts to subject President Obama to a Mike Wallace-style grilling about his economic policy this morning, but the DJs may have set a new standard for softball questioning of the president in an election year.

Here’s a sample:

KOB: If you had a superpower, what would it be?

Obama:  This sounds — it’s kind of a weird super power, but if I had something that I could immediately wish for, I would love to be able to speak any language. Now that’s a weird super power — it might not come in handy to rescue folks from a burning building. But I’ve always wished that whatever country I’ve went to, whenever I’ve met somebody who spoke a different language that I could right away speak their language.

The pop music radio show hosts also asked about Obama’s favorite workout songs. The president mentioned old-school R&B greats Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and then with a nod to contemporary music, he cited Nas, Jay-Z and Beyonce.

As for the all-important question of red or green chile?

“I think you’ve got to go with the classic red, although every once in a while green is solid,” Obama replied. “I’m just going with red on this one.”

The morning team did ask the president one slightly serious question — what advice he had for kids as they go back to school.

“Be consistent, don’t quit,” Obama said.

According to The Associated Press, Obama has made one short trip to New Mexico this campaign season, stopping at an oil field in remote southeastern New Mexico on his way from Las Vegas, Nev., to Oklahoma. He indicated he would like to come back.

“I gotta get there,” he said. “I love that state. It is beautiful, and the people are all nice to me.”

BuzzFeed has a synopsis of the interview with a YouTube video clip here. The national press corps, frustrated that Obama hasn’t taken any questions in weeks, mocked the interview mercilessly on Twitter this morning. The Republican National Committee was unsurprisingly indignant.

“Obama hasn’t answered questions from the White House press corps in over 8 weeks but he has appeared on Entertainment Tonight and pop radio stations,” a committee statement said. “Obama has yet to be asked by reporters about the increasing unemployment rate but we do now know where he stands on (the catchy Carly Rae Jepsen pop song) Call Me Maybe.”

It’s interesting to consider whether this kind of fluffy interview helps or hurts the president. The Obama campaign obviously knew that the “Morning Mayhem” crew was unlikely to press him for answers on the crisis in Syria or stubborn unemployment figures. They figured that a fun interview like this one — and it was kind of fun — can humanize the president and appeal to radio listeners who may not follow NPR or the Wall Street Journal on Twitter.

At the same time, the media response to the interview has been so sarcastic and incredulous it might reinforce the views of those who think the president isn’t taking his job seriously enough.

Whatever its impact, the interview made for a lasting memory for one of the KOB interviewers who proclaimed at the end of the questioning that “I just flirted with the president of the United States of America.”

In fairness to the president, the White House has invited me to conduct a substantive interview with Obama twice, along with a few other reporters. You can read those interviews here and here. But it’s been several years since he talked to New Mexico’s largest daily newspaper.

Obama campaign officials — when you’re ready to do another serious interview, I stand ready.