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Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama were on a special 60 Minutes on Sunday night. Read about it and see the interview in videos below.

Steve Kroft, of the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes, landed THE big interview with THE One. The interview with Barack and Michelle Obama was recorded on Friday at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago and aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday night. It was a simply lovely interview! Kroft asked them hard hitting questions like how did it feel to be off the campaign trail and what would it feel like to live in the White House. It has received praise from all corners as an probing and revealing interview.

I couldn’t help but think of the comparison between this interview and the interview with Sarah Palin in which she was ridiculed in the press. But we won’t go there right at the moment.

During his interview, Barack did what he does so often, he compared himself to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then the Obamas talked about life in the White House. Michelle said she’d be happy for her husband to have a big office in their house. She would be happy for him to be able to tuck the girls into bed and have the run into the Oval Office to say ‘hi’ to him before they started their homework.

Of course, the great Obama dog situation was discussed.

They talked about how nice it feels to have some normalcy now that the campaign is over and before they move into the White House. At least as normal as it can be with barriers around their house, surrounded by Secret Service Agents and having to work so hard at figuring out how many Clinton leftovers they can fit into cabinet posts. Other than that, at least they are eating their meals under the same roof.

Yes, the Obama 60 Minutes interview was a hard hitting!

You can watch it for yourself in the videos under the jump.

60 Minute Obama Interview videos

Barack Obama is set to interview with 60 Minutes in his first post-election interview. Obama and his wife are scheduled to sit down with Steve Kroft on Friday in Chicago to tape the interview. It is scheduled to go on the air this Sunday. See video below.

Past interviews on 60 Minutes have been an enormous success. Last week’s interview with Obama’s transition staff drew over 18 million viewers. This interview will likely see quite a bit more than that. Sarah Palin has also been interviewed on NBC and Fox. It would appear that the American people are far from “over�? this election.

Certainly Obama will be asked about his plans for the economy, healthcare, energy, and even Iraq. They will discuss how much of his agenda Mr. Obama plans to tackle right away, and how much will need to be put off. They might even tackle taxes. However, Mr. Obama will dance around the questions, and we will probably come away knowing little more than we did the day before. Still, Americans love to see the person and how he handles the questions, which to his credit he does quite well.

I wonder if they’ll ask him about his socialist leanings, his civilian national security force, or how he plans to pay for all his wild ideas. I wonder if they’ll hammer him about raising taxes (regardless of who he raises taxes on), and what that will do to the already damaged economy. I doubt it. His buddies at CBS are going to be just jolly and cheery about their man. We will see a stark contrast from the interviews with our Republican candidates earlier this year. To be expected.

Video

Here is the video teaser of Lesley Stahl’s interview with Nicolas Sarkozy on 60 Minutes. In the typical fashion of the sexually obsessed American media, Stahl begins to probe Sarkozy on his relationship with his wife and extramarital affair. He leaves quickly.

“No, no. This is stupid,” said Sarkozy as he called his own press secretary an imbecile for setting up an ambush interview.

Not much to say about Sarkozy’s short interview except laugh at the expression on Lesley Stahl’s face. When you interview a head of state, the established tradition is to give the greatest deference as a reporter.

“O.K. I don’t have the time. I have a big job to do. I have a schedule. Very busy. Very busy.”

The American media has forgotten its place as the dispassionate conduit of news rather than as a news maker. Their legitimate role has been lost in the 24-hour news cycle, news “analysis” shows which are nothing more than sound bytes, and by competitive pressures from too many news outlets.

[tags]Nicolas+Sarkozy, stahl, 60 minutes, interview, video[/tags]

Last month, 60 Minutes blew the lid off the Duke University Rape Case. They took their time to do it right, exposing one of the great frauds by a prosecutor in U.S. history. The double-length presentation featured analysis of documents as well as interviews with the accused boys on the lacrosse team.

Over the past six months, 60 Minutes examined nearly the entire case file, more than 2,000 documents, including police reports, witness statements and medical records. The evidence 60 Minutes aired revealed disturbing facts about the conduct of the police and the district attorney, and in 60 Minutes underplayed words, “raises serious concerns about whether or not a rape even occurred.”

The three accused Duke players are white, and come from wealthy families. The accuser is a black stripper hired to perform at a team party, and someone who has a shady past. The other stripper who was with her denies that a rape occured. DNA evidence has seemingly cleared the boys.

Said David Evans, co-captain of the Duke lacrosse team and one of the accused players, “This woman [the accuser] has destroyed everything I worked for in my life. She’s put it on hold. She’s destroyed two other families and she’s brought shame on a great university. And, worst of all she’s split apart a community and a nation on facts that just didn’t happen and a lie that should have never been told.”

CBS legal analyst Mickey Sherman followed up the 60 Minutes expose with this article. Sherman also said the following about the boys’ interview on The Early Show:

“It shows an incredible amount of confidence in your case. You didn’t see lawyers sitting next to these guys,” he said. “And the fact they would just submit themselves tells me the lawyers believe their clients and believe in their clients and they are able to handle any cross examination in court, much less the interrogation of Ed Bradley.”

In my opinion, Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong should have been impeached from office, disbarred for gross negligence, and prosecuted for abuse of power. He blatantly used an obviously fake rape case to further his political ambition, garnering votes within the local black community in North Carolina to win a close election. His opportunistic gambit has cost several young boys their reputations, and has cast a shadow of derision across all students at one of the finest universities in the United States.

Instead, Mike Nifong was re-elected this month to continue serving his community in North Carolina as their top legal prosecutor. What a disgrace.