
The 'longest 40 minutes' of obama's life
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THE VIDEO: CBS' Sunday night broadcast of _60 Minutes_ was dominated by an interview with President Obama, most of which focused on the May 1 killing of Osama bin Laden. (Watch clips
below.) Obama said that before the commando raid, he'd estimated there was a 45 percent chance the U.S. had incorrectly identified bin Laden's location. So watching the operation
unfold in real time was perhaps "the longest 40 minutes of my life." The president didn't lose any sleep over the al Qaeda leader's death, though. Anyone who thinks bin
Laden "didn't deserve what he got needs to have their head examined," he said. The reaction: The whole interview is "pretty dramatic," says Sam Thielman at
_Variety_. And when Obama compared the emotional experience of watching the raid to the time he grappled with his daughter's infant meningitis scare, he "manages to come off as
cuddly even when he's talking about sending two dozen battle-hardened megaspies... to shoot the boogeyman in the face." Indeed, Obama gave us a few new details in a story we
can't get enough of, says Ken Tucker at _Entertainment Weekly_. But it wasn't exactly a hard-hitting interview. _60 Minutes_ is a great "safe haven" for big-time
politicians to get their "message across with the maximum audience and the minimum of reportorial interference." Watch highlights from the interview: SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape
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