Obama to Jon Stewart: I Haven't Been 'Timid'

President Obama fended off ribbing about a "timid" agenda from Jon Stewart, and defended his accomplishments on a much-hyped Daily Show appearance. One standout exchange:

• Stewart: “Is the difficulty you have here the distance between what you ran on and what you delivered? You ran with such, if I may, audacity, yet legislatively it has felt timid at times. I am not even sure at times what you want out of a health care bill.”
• Obama: “Jon, I love your show, but this is something where I have a profound disagreement with you. This notion that health care was timid—you’ve got 30 million people that will have health insurance because of this.”

At another point, Stewart asked whether the new slogan should be, "Yes we can, given certain conditions." To which Obama responded, “No I think what I would say is yes we can, but”—at which point he was interrupted by a laughing Stewart, before finishing: “But it’s not going to happen overnight." The interview went so long that Stewart cut his taped intro, notes the New York Times, which featured the host making Obama wait. And as Stewart tried to wrap the interview—the show consisted of a single interview for the first time—Obama made one last plea: “Can I just make a plug just to vote? Go out there and vote Nov. 2. A lot of you have early voting in your states; make sure you make use of it.’’ (More Jon Stewart stories.)