Sanger on ABC: Obama 'More Moderate than Expected'; Brown on CBS: 'Spring Time in America!'

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Asked by George Stephanopoulos to name the “most important thing we've learned” about President Barack Obama during his first one hundred days in office (which is still three days away), David Sanger, a Washington correspondent for the New York Times, asserted: “I think we've learned that he's more moderate than we had expected.” That says a lot about the mindset of New York Times reporters and prompted George Will to retort, during the roundtable segment on ABC's This Week: “He's less moderate than I thought. He's going to design our cars. He's going to design our light bulbs. He's going to tell us where our house shall be built. This is supervisory liberalism in the most nagging, annoying sort.”

Bob Schieffer brought aboard CBS's Face the Nation the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast site, to assess Obama. Brown could barely contain herself, trumpeting “what a force-multiplier Michelle Obama has turned out to be” as she and her husband work in “flawless concert,” so while “the world is talking about torture and the Bush administration, then we have Michelle with her vegetable garden. Talk about Spring time in America!”

Brown's excitement:

One of the great surprises is what a force-multiplier Michelle Obama has turned out to be because these two are working in such, sort of, flawless concert. You know as the world is talking about torture and the Bush administration, then we have Michelle with her vegetable garden. Talk about Spring time in America! There's a real sense that these two are operating in a kind of wonderful symbiosis that we really haven't seen, I don't think ever, between a President and a First Lady.

Sanger's complete answer on the April 26 This Week:

I think we've learned that he's more moderate than we had expected. I think we've learned that he is quite determined to follow through, almost as a checklist, on his campaign promises. And I think we've also learned that we don't really know his bottom line. Whether it's the banks or Iran, we haven't yet figured out whether or not there's an element in this personality that wavers a bit.