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."