CBS Sunday Morning sat down with former President Barack Obama and rock star Bruce Springsteen for a chummy interview with the two leftists to promote their podcast. It was as gushy and pathetic as you might expect.
Introducing the segment, host Jane Pauley swooned: “each of them can legitimately claim to be the boss. Anthony Mason is talking with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen.”
CBS correspondent Anthony Mason visited the two of them at Springsteen’s New Jersey farm which he hypocritically uses as a tax write-off in order to pay less taxes while simultaneously lecturing Americans on “paying their fair share.”
Cutting to footage of Obama and Springsteen driving away in a convertible, Mason gushes: “A rock star and former President hitting the road. If it looks like a buddy movie, well, it's kind of become one.”
Explaining how it came to be, Obama claimed “Bruce Springsteen decided to charitably help out some not very well-known new U.S. Senator who had the audacity to run for President.”
Mason asked Obama if “in some ways, your father's absence drove your ambition?” In response, Obama said “absolutely. My father was absent. He left when I was 2. I met him only once, knew him for about a month.” “That's interesting how influential that month turned out to be” Mason gushed.
Later on in the interview, Mason attempted a return to reality by moving on from Obama and Springsteen’s bromance to ask how he's "feeling about the midterms and how the President is doing?”
Obama insisted he thinks “Joe Biden is pursuing the exact policies that need to be pursued.”
Hedging a bit, he added “has he been able to bridge the polarization that we’ve seen building up over several decades now? No. And in fairness to him, I wasn't able to slow that down as much as I would have liked, and certainly my successor, you know, actively promoted it.”
Instead of Mason jumping in and telling Obama that he was a major cause of the polarization that occurred during his administration, he let Obama act like he was above the fray.
“We're going to have to figure out how do we regain some sense of a common American story and I think that is gonna be a longer-term project” Obama lectured. “I think that's a 10, 20-year process.”
Springsteen ended by claiming “we can be momentarily polarized, but at the end of the day, history is moving on.”
The fact that Obama and Springsteen are going to solve our nation’s “polarization” is laughable. If Anthony Mason was a real reporter he would’ve pointed that out.
To syrupy interview with Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen was made possible by Walmart. Their information is linked.
To read the relevant transcript of this segment click “expand”:
CBS Sunday Morning
July 24, 2022
9:59:22 a.m. EasternJANE PAULEY: Each of them can legitimately claim to be the boss. Anthony Mason is talking with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. A story we consider one of our Sunday best.
(...)
10:00:19 a.m Eastern
ANTHONY MASON: A rock star and former President hitting the road. If it looks like a buddy movie well, it's kind of become one. This friendship started in 2008.
BARACK OBAMA: You know, Bruce Springsteen decided to charitably help out some not very well-known new U.S. Senator who had the audacity to run for President.
(...)
10:04:15 a.m Eastern
MASON: Let me ask you this because you said something in the podcast, Bruce, that really struck me, which was in many ways your work was really about your father.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: The more I look back on it, the more that's the conclusion I come to.
MASON: What were you doing in that?
SPRINGSTEEN: Well, in a sense trying to be -- I try to create a physical self that I thought he would approve of, have the success that I thought he would approve of, but I also felt a certain sort of -- that I was an instrument of revenge for the disappointments that my father had in his life. And so I started to intensely tell these working-class stories that were filled with both -- both hope and compassion, but a lot of anger also. And I think Barack had a very similar, I mean, why did you become president? Who were you trying to impress?
MASON: Well, that was my next question. Do you think in some ways your father's absence drove your ambition?
OBAMA: Absolutely. My father was absent. He left when I was 2. I met him only once, knew him for about a month.
MASON: That's interesting how influential that month turned out to be.
OBAMA: Well, that’s right. I wrote a whole book called Dreams from my father, a guy I didn't know.
(...)
10:07:07 a.m. Eastern
MASON: Looking forward, how are you feeling about the midterms and how the President is doing?
OBAMA: Well, look, I think Joe Biden is pursuing the exact policies that need to be pursued. Has he been able to bridge the polarization that we’ve seen building up over several decades now? No. And in fairness to him, I wasn't able to slow that down as much as I would have liked, and certainly my successor, you know, actively promoted it.
We're going to have to figure out how do we regain some sense of a common American story and I think that is gonna be a longer-term project. I think that's a 10, 20-year process.
SPRINGSTEEN: It's a generational.
OBAMA: It is a generational process. The good news is that I think there is more of a common story among young people, but the older folks like us, we got to get out the way.
SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah, there is no going back. We can be momentarily polarized, but at the end of the day, history is moving on.
