GLAMOUROUS FUROR: “Leader of the Free World Interviewed by Glamour.” That was the headline on a blog post at the National Review’s Web site after WWD reported Cindi Leive interviewed President Barack Obama last month. “Can’t wait to see what he thinks of the new fall collection. Next month, the Cosmo interview!” National contributor Jim Geraghty cattily wrote.
RELATED STORY: Glamour Gets Time With President Obama >>
The reception from other pundits and conservative bloggers wasn’t any kinder. The Drudge Report picked a photo of Obama staring into a mirror to illustrate the story, and Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren blogged on her personal Web site it “does open him up to fair criticism that he is avoiding the sharper questions others would pose to him.”
The logic goes the President has more important issues to attend to than sit down with a fashion magazine. “The grumbling about Obama’s fluff interviews would be quieter if the country were in a time of peace and prosperity, or if he hadn’t gone close to eight weeks without a press conference,” Geraghty expanded in a follow-up e-mail.
Obama is not the first sitting president to give an interview to Glamour. George W. Bush sat down with Leive in January 2008, a time of escalated violence in Afghanistan and high oil prices.
So what’s so different about Obama’s interview? “Obama may be getting more grief than Bush did, but the state of the country might have voters less patient about the fluff interviews than in a normal political environment,” Geraghty wrote. Leive declined to comment further, or discuss the other topics of the interview.
Glamour has also approached the Romney campaign for an interview, but they have not reached an agreement yet. “We’d certainly like to have one,” a magazine spokeswoman said.