Obama: a time of peril and possibility

They went largely unnoticed because the headline of the day was his plan to end the war in Iraq and withdraw US troops.

But President Obama had some intriguing comments in his interview with "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" about how his administration is doing after nearly six weeks of dealing with the biggest economic crisis in decades and of taking on ambitious goals on healthcare, energy, the environment, etc., etc..

"I've got a full plate," Obama said.

Asked if he felt burdened, Obama replied, "I think that we are at an extraordinary moment that is full or peril but full of possibility and I think that's the time you want to be president. I think there's a sense that right now we are having to make some very big decisions that will help determine the direction of this country and in ways large and small the direction of the world for the next generation."

But Obama quickly added that he wishes the issues weren't all landing at once.

"It would nice to be able to stage them on one another," the president said. "Let's -- you know, we'll take, you know, the economy first and then we'll take Afghanistan after that and then Iraq after that and Iran after that and, you know, the banking system somewhere out there, autos, you know. It would be wonderful if we didn't have all the planes in the air at the same time. But having said that, I meant what I said in my joint address to Congress. I think that there's -- there's something about this country where hard times, big challenges bring out the best in us. This is when the political system starts to move effectively. This is when people start getting out of the petty and the trivial debates. This is when the public starts paying attention in ways that they -- you know, when things are going well, you know, they've got better things to do than to think about public policy, you know. So I am -- I am invigorated by the challenges.

Obama said he is proud of what his team has accomplished so far.

"But look, we've got a lot of big stuff ahead of us," he added. "Not every decision we're going to make is going to be perfect. Not every plan that we lay out is going to work out exactly as we intended. But if we get the big stuff right then, you know, the ship of state is a -- is a big tanker and, you know, you can't simply reverse direction on the economy or any of these things overnight, but you can start moving in a better trajectory so that 5 years, 10 years down the road you can say, you know, what, because of good decisions now our kids are safer, more secure, more prosperous, more unified than they were before."