In an April 11 Fox Nation post, a headline read, “Obama Complains to Schoolchildren About His Job.”
The post described a question asked by a student: “What was the hardest challenge you had to overcome to become President, or being President?” To which Obama responded:
Being President? The hardest thing is that this is such a big country, with so many different kinds of people, and everybody has different ideas. And so even if you have a pretty clear sense of what you want to do on the budget, or on health care, on foreign policy, there are gonna be, you know, half the country may disagree with you and trying to make sure in a democracy everybody can come to the table, express their opinions, and do that in a respectful way that we're still able to solve problems. That's a challenge. Because it would be easier if I could just say, “Well here's what I think is the best thing to do” and I could just do it. But I've got this thing called Congress, and they're elected to make sure that your opinions when you vote for members of congress that their opinions are expressed. You've got the Judiciary that says, “Well we've got this Constitution and this is how we should do things.” And so all those different branches, are part of what makes America special because no one person ends up having too much power. Everybody has to figure out how to work together and sort through our differences.
But sometimes in this kind of environment where you have all these folks on the TV who are shouting at each other all the time. And sometimes the general public, because they're so busy, you guys may just not have time to follow every little piece of debate. It could make democracy move really slowly. And some of the challenges we have on energy, or on education or research those are things where we've got to compete with all these other countries, we've got to be able to move forward in a clear, effective way. Sometimes I get a little, frustrated that the debates aren't more honest or as clear as I'd like them to be. But overall it's a pretty good job, and a really nice backyard! [emphasis in original]