Obama Takes Questions From HuffPost And Helen Thomas

A brilliant performance by the new president, I'd have to say. But troubling on the same old issues. "I just laughed when Obama said that a nuclear Iran 'might set off a nuclear arms race in the region,'" F.E. Felson says. "I wonder what effect he thinks Israel's 300 nukes have on the region, and on Iranian ambitions." Well Helen Thomas asked him that very question. Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons? Obama said he didn't care to "speculate." The imperative is to stop a nuclear arms race. When will American politicans stop lying to the American people and themselves on this essential question?

President Obama took his first question from Helen Thomas as a press conference tonight -- and from Sam Stein at Huffington Post, perhaps the first blogger to get called on at primetime presser. Stein asked about torture policy going forward and is anyone above the law? Obama said U.S. would not torture and "no one above the law" and can be prosecuted -- but "generally speaking" he is "interested in looking forward, not backward."

He got another good question at presser tonight: Will he overturn the military policy of not allowing media to cover caskets of soldiers coming home from war zones? After all, Joe Biden called for that years ago. Obama replied: "Your question is timely. We got a report that four American servicemen died in Iraq today....With respect to the policy of opening up media, we are in the process of reviewing those polictes with the Department of Defense...so I don't want to give you an answer right now until completed." Punt?

Also asked about timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Lot of talk about Iraq but what about the other war zone? Obama said that unlike in Iraq, where we have seen some hopeful political progress, not so in Afghanistan. Need to stop Taliban. Mentions 9/11 and meeting families of victims recently. Will never let al-Qaeda operate freely. So sounds like: Withdrawal a long, long way off.

Helen Thomas asked if he knew of any countries in the Middle East that already have nuclear weapons. Obviously, she meant: Israel (which reportedly has them). He said he wouldn't want to say but any escalation now would be bad. She interrupted him twice in mid-question, pressing the point. And at very end she was still pressing

Though Obama was pretty good on George Mitchell. He said that the appointment of Mitchell and his choice to be interviewed by Al-Arabiya sent the signal to the Muslim world that things were going to be "different" under this administration. Prove it.