I'm a college teacher some of the time, and I have to say that what I've just witnessed was a demonstration of masterly teaching practice.
Our broadcast media has been operating under the assumption that in order to succeed, its presentation needs to be understandable by the ignorant and uninformed. They have elected to address this by making their spokespersons as ignorant and uninformed as they can possibly be — the better to appeal to an ignorant & uninformed general public.
This, of course, has a terrible effect on our public discourse; ignorant reporters & pundits dumb down their audience, and are then obliged to get even stupider themselves in order to "reach" the lowest common denominator. And so it goes, endlessly.
Questioning Bush, the mediafolk did not have to rise above the level of abysmal stupidity, because Bush was the perfect President for Stupid Media.
Professor Obama, on the other hand?
Let me tell you what I think about what I saw and heard...
It is a standard format for many university classes for the professor to begin with some prepared material and then open the floor for questions.
I missed the opening statement...but I watched with great admiration as President Obama opened the floor for questions.
The quality of the press conference was transformed. Under Bush, pressers were the equivalent of a celebrity athlete or entertainer getting interviewed by a sympathetic crowd: "How'd it feel when ya hit that homer, Buddy?" Bush's carefully crafted inarticulateness and "aw, shucks" image is probably the single thing in his life that he's ever worked really hard at...and it reacted synergistically with the occupational ignorance of the vast majority of "journalists."
There are two choices when one is confronted by ignorance: dumb down, or raise up.
A good professor does not humiliate his/her students. I teach education, and one of the points I make to my students is, "you'll have students in your own classes who will ask what seem like disruptive and/or just plain stupid questions. The best way to deal with a disruptive question is to treat it with care and respect - breathe slowly while you answer; the best way to deal with a stupid question is to try and figure out what the questioner is actually hoping to find out...and respond to their underlying concern by helping them to articulate their own question more effectively."
President Obama was asked a few pretty dumb questions today, but his responses showed consideration and respect for the questioner. The "race" question, for example. The reporter formulated her question extremely vaguely, and it was impossible to tell what she wanted to find out. The Professor treated her with thoughtful attention while he mulled over her words, and he arrived at a workable model of her underlying concern. She was, as it were, channeling all the worried white people in her audience, and she (on their behalf, of course) needed reassurance. In response, Obama's voice was soothing, and his material was appropriate: anecdotes are often an important way to address badly articulated concerns; students who cannot formulate intelligible questions are more likely to be calmed by stories than statistics.
Similarly, there were a number of disruptive questions. In a classroom, the students who ask disruptive questions are seeking status in the tribe; they will attain maximum status if they succeed in unbalancing the classroom dynamic. Their underlying concern is their own personal/tribal status; the actual content of their question is almost completely irrelevant. The correct professorial response is to recognize that disruptive questions are indicative of individual students' status concerns...and therefore simply humiliating the student is counterproductive (either creating an enmity or reinforcing a pre-existing one). Rather, a pedagogically appropriate approach is to confer limited status, in ways that reinforce the student/teacher hierarchy. One of the ways this can work in class is to engage the student in a memorable exchange. If a student asks a smart-ass question designed to trip you up, your best bet is to elevate him or her a bit by treating the question seriously and thoughtfully...before you deliver a putdown. The student's status is raised, the question is answered...and the class is treated to a memorable exchange.
We saw that a lot this evening too.
Devastating putdowns can be problematic if there is extreme hierarchical inequality involved (imagine if he had fired that zinger at, say, a guest reporter from the local high school paper!). The few times Professor Obama delivered a public smackdown, it was to one of the journalist pack's Alpha Males. The Ed Henry moment was a fine example. Notice how his answer had three parts: first, a policy-rich discussion of the issues that nominally motivated the question ("why didn't you get mad on TV right away after you heard about the bonuses?"); second, an acknowledgment that the original question had not been answered and an offer extended to the interlocutor inviting him to ask the question again; third, a devastating putdown that vividly revealed the vacuity of the question and its premise ("I didn't comment for a few days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I open my mouth" - the counterfactual of which is: "I always speak first and figure out what I'm talking about later."). Ed Henry's status in the tribe was elevated by this exchange, not reduced (too bad, I agree, but I'm speaking anthropologically here.).
Professors are, if they're responsible types, passionately interested in getting their students to learn things. President/Professor Obama clearly wants the journalists to ask responsible questions, and in a classroom context, his approach would certainly transform student behavior over the course of a semester. I hope he succeeds with our press corps; we can no longer afford ignorant questions.
Update: It's 1 AM here on the east coast, and I've got an early start ahead of me tomorrow. I can't do the "gee, my first time on the rec list!" thing because it's my second time on the rec list (previous time was in 2006!). So I'll just say I'm glad I said something that made a connection with the great Orange Hive Mind.