Obama's Moment

It's January 20th. You take office. Look at what you're confronting: the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, the climate heating up faster than anyone imagined, dangerous nuclear instability around the world...
Two wars. Yeah, we got some problems.

Do you still want the job?
I tell you what — now is the time, I think, to want the job. Because this is going to be a transitional moment for the United States. We have these moments periodically. Obviously, I wish that the Bush administration had not run things into the ground so bad, but no matter what, we would have had some big decisions to make. We have a big decision to make about our energy. We have a big decision to make about health care. We have a big decision to make about how do we revamp our education system to compete in a global economy. We have a big decision to make about our foreign policy and how we deal with transnational threats like terrorism, climate change — eventually pandemic, refugee flows, genocide.

So how do you prioritize with so many explosive crises occurring all at once?
No matter what, there's going to be the need for a paradigm shift. The problem is that Bush has left us with very few resources to deal with these issues, and the economy's in a weakened state. But I decided to run this time — which was relatively early in comparison to some other presidents, or other candidates — precisely because I thought the skills I have might be important at this time. So I welcome the challenge, and I think America can rise to it.

What makes you better prepared than John McCain to handle a crisis — whether it's a terrorist attack, a financial meltdown or a natural disaster?
We've had two significant moments where the judgment of a commander in chief would have to be applied in a very deliberate fashion. One is the war in Iraq, and the other is what's happened just over the last three and a half weeks on Wall Street. In both instances, what you've seen is John McCain being impulsive, not getting all the information that he needs, surrounding himself with people who are predisposed to agreeing with him. And as a consequence, I think he's made bad judgments. In Iraq he embraced a theory of preventive war without thinking through all the consequences. He embraced the intelligence that was patently bad, and we're suffering the consequences of it. And just over the last three and a half weeks, he's gone from being always for deregulation to now presenting himself as this champion of regulatory toughness. He's gone from the economy being fundamentally sound to two hours later saying that we're in crisis. I don't get a sense that that kind of approach is what's going to be needed right now. I think we need somebody who is able to see all sides of an argument, bring the best people together, evaluate all our options, make decisive decisions, correct those decisions when they're not working out, and has a strategic sense or a vision of where the country needs to go — who's not simply reacting all the time or thinking tactically.

The campaign has taken a nasty turn in the past few weeks. Has it changed your opinion of McCain personally, the way he's run his campaign?
I just think he wants to win. And I think he's decided that the environment's not a good one for Republicans, so he's going to do what he thinks is necessary. I am surprised that he would hire people who are connected to the same kind of destructive politics that Bush directed at him in 2000.

Were you disturbed by the disdain he exhibited toward you during the first debate?
No. I think that's a sign that we must be doing pretty well.