President Obama is no stranger to the interview although he claims that he is rarely given the opportunity to do the interviewing. In a discussion held last month in Iowa and posted yesterday by The New York Review of Books, Obama asked Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead, Marilynne Robinson about faith, democracy, education and writing.

Obama commented that he wanted to interview someone he “liked” and that he was a longtime fan:

“Part of my connection to your books, I think, is an appreciation for — without romanticizing Middle America or small-town America — that sense of homespun virtues. And that comes out in your writing. And it sometimes seems really foreign to popular culture today, which is all about celebrity and being loud and bragging.”

All about “celebrity”, “being loud” and “bragging”, huh? To be honest, I about spit coffee all over my keyboard when I read that one because usually he plays right to the choir of his loud, celebrity minion braggarts. But BHO didn’t stop there. Of course, on the subject of Middle America and “homespun virtues”, he brought up American acheivement and stated that America’s greatness stems from a sense of “nagging dissatisfaction” that spurred settlers to move West, helped astronauts land on the moon and inspired the creation of the Internet.