Last night's presser

I finally got around to watching the entire hour and it was very effective.

A question you will often hear me ask over the next four years is: "Could Bush, Cheney, or Palin have done this as well?" For this conference, not a chance. McCain is knowledgeable on a few issues but by his own admission the economy isn't one of them. Jindal is one of the few up-and-coming pols on the right with the intellectual heft to articulate as cogent of an agenda, but his debut a month ago was widely seen as disastrous.

And looking to the left, could Clinton, Gore, Dean, Kerry, or Hillary have given a press conference like this? Clinton certainly, Kerry not on his life. The rest have good political skills such that I'm unsure their economic knowledge runs deep enough -- I imagine we'd have just gotten a plethora of focus group tested talking points.

Whether or not you agree with some or most of his policies, it is abundantly clear that Americans have a president they can be proud of -- a far cry from right-wing blogs' "obamateur" obsession and claim that he needs a teleprompter to speak intelligently.

His staff also made great choices in selecting who to call on for questions. AFP reaches Europe (like the AP here), The Washington Times reaches social conservatives, and Politico reaches the chattering classes.

He eschewed calling on big outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or Los Angeles Times. Such papers already give his agenda massive amounts of coverage.