A confident, generous, cagey, respectful, humour-laced performance by the 44th POTUS. "Things are never as good as they seem and never as bad as they seem." "You're talking to a guy who was thirty points down the in the polls in Iowa." On H1N1, on Pakistan, Iraq, Arlen Specter, bi-partisanship, Congress, abortion, teen pregnancy,immigration, John McCain, the border, unemployment, stimulus, energy, healthcare, cars, banks, this is a skilled politician who is also the leader of one-third of the government and always a public servant.  The POTUS remarks were so comprehensive that when it came to the weighty torture question from Jake Tapper, ABC (above), on whether or not the POTUS believes the Bush administration committed torture, it was loud and clear that the POTUS refused to answer.  The door to criminalizing the Bush administration remains ajar.  All other issues were handled deftly: "When I first started this race, Iraq was a central issue." "I didn't anticipate the worst economic crisis since the Depression."  "I just can't press a button and have the bankers do what I want... what you do is make your best arguments...and coax folks in the right directions."  "I don't want to run auto companies, I don't want to run banks..."   "Oh, Obama wants to grow government... No!"  The top of his game, with the caveat that torture is a burning fuse.