Elizabeth Cheney was featured on MSNBC last week speaking with the type of strong conviction that has been missing from the previous administration’s defense of their policies. If you have the time, the video clip below is an excellent representation of two things. First, how clearly Ms. Cheney presents her position and the position of the previous administration. Second, if you listen to the exchanges between the host and Ms. Cheney, it becomes very clear how the host is trying to lead Ms. Cheney down a certain road of intended “guilt” for the previous administration’s assumed law-breaking.

It is a great credit to Ms. Cheney that she is able to both defend the previous administration AND fend off the inherent far-left bias in the host’s questions. Take a listen and see what you think.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because this is something new for a President, but his loose attitude at Leno last night was a little bit much for me. Just as it was refreshing to have a President break that austere facade that we have grown accustomed to seeing from the Oval Office, I was a little uneasy that the leader of the free world was yucking it up on a talk show. And as for his comment about the Special Olympics, it was absolutely insulting and another in a line of gaffes from the Obama/Biden combination.

It seems to me that the President hasn’t really evolved from that campaign mode into the leadership role that he needs to assume. He needs to stop worrying about whether or not people like him and get back to swinging the hammer at against the “Washington-as-usual” crowd. Then you have the inherent bias against the Republicans where if a Republican President had visited Leno he would have been universally panned and if he had made the Special Olympics comment he would have been told to resign from office.

It just made me uneasy to have the President on late night television when there is so much crap going on in the country that need strong leadership right now. You can read an even better description (with links from around the blogosphere) about what President Obama’s appearance on The Tonight Show means at Fausta’s Blog.