Obama Kicks off Twitter Town Hall Meeting
President Barack Obama answered questions from Twitter users across the U.S. in a town hall meeting Wednesday that used the popular social media service and focused on jobs and the economy.
White House officials say Obama sees social media as a way to reach beyond the mainstream media and interact with Americans directly, particularly the younger and more tech-savy part of the electorate as his campaign for re-election in 2012 ramps up.
Twitter selected the questions for the president from among the thousands of inquires submitted, including the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, who asked Obama, "Where are the jobs?"
"This is a slightly skewed question," Obama said of his political rival's inquiry.
The president went on to answer Boehner's question by noting that the economy is, in fact, creating jobs, though not at a pace anyone should be satisfied with. He said there is more the government could do to boost the economy, but he hasn't always been able to get Republican support for doing so.
Twitter users had to keep their questions to the networking site's 140-character limit. But the president had no such restrictions. He answered in his trademark, lengthy form to questions on college costs, immigration, collective bargaining rights, the debt limit, manufacturing jobs, the housing crisis and other topics as Twitter users sent questions in by the tens of thousands.
Twitter was boiling his answers down to 140 characters or less at http://askobama.twitter.com.
The first question for Obama asked the president what mistakes he had made in handling the recession and what he would do differently.
Obama defended his stimulus program as "the right thing to do." But he allowed that his administration had underestimated the severity of the recession, and so he did not prepare the American people "for how long this was going to take" and the touch choices that lay ahead. Obama also said the problems in the housing market were more stubborn than expected and he'd had to revamp his housing assistance programs several times.
Source: Associated Press
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