LABELS

Obama Denies Socialism Charge

Calls the New York Times to clarify remarks.

President Obama was so miffed by repeated questions from New York Times reporters about whether his policies are "socialist" that he called the paper after their sit-down to set the record straight. "Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter—It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question," he said, before noting the bank rescue "wasn't on my watch." He added, "I just think it's clear by the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system." But could Obama have seriously thought the Times' line of questioning ("Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?... Is there anything wrong with saying yes?") was less than serious? As the Huffington Post's Jason Linkins points out, in the same interview, Obama admitted to reading "most of the big national papers" that have been analyzing the policies for some time.