'Masterful' Obama Performance with Leno 'Calmed Down' Totenberg

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Since “I've really been getting pretty upset in the last week, just like every other American,” NPR's Nina Totenberg decided to watch President Obama on the Tonight Show “and he calmed me down. And he was presidential. I thought it was just a masterful performance.” 

The eager-to-be-impressed Totenberg made her comment on Inside Washington, a weekly show produced and aired over the weekend by Washington, DC's ABC affiliate and its all-news cable channel, News Channel 8:

When I heard he was going to do this I thought, should a President really do that? Then I actually stayed up and watched it and he calmed me down. I've really been getting pretty upset in the last week, just like every other American I think. And he calmed me down. And he was presidential. I thought it was just a masterful performance.

Three weeks ago, my NewsBusters post, “Nina Totenberg's Friend: 'Oh My God, We Have a President Again!'” recounted:

NPR's Nina Totenberg revealed Friday, not surprisingly, that she was enchanted by President Barack Obama's address earlier in the week to a joint session of Congress. "It made me feel pretty good. I thought it was a great speech," she enthused before relaying a contrast with former President George W. Bush: "A friend of mine said, 'oh my God, we have a President again!'" Totenberg added that "in some ways, that's not fair to Bush," but she insisted: "That's the way you felt. You felt this was a guy who was totally in charge."