Face to face with US 'rock star' president

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - We were led through a door that is usually forbiddingly closed, past a clutch of burly secret service agents, around a corner, and there he was, in a corridor leading to the Oval Office.

Barack Obama, America's "rock star" president, greeted us with a smile and a handshake.

I had felt a little nervous before the interview, partly because we had so little time allotted, just 15 minutes to try to extract some news.

But I also felt a buzz of adrenalin. In a room that evokes history, power and tradition, we were waved to our seats by America's first black president and a man who has caught the imagination of the world like few of his predecessors.

So what is he really like, my friends wanted to know afterward.

He seemed friendly and charming of course, but businesslike too; cautious and deliberative mostly, but sharp and amusing at times. He was very obviously proud of his daughters and maybe a little sensitive about his Nobel Peace Prize.

He was thin and angular, confident and smart, perhaps a little greyer around the temples than I had thought. I found myself noticing his Calvin Klein socks and long, black shoes.

As we walked in, we chatted briefly about a wooden carving from Burundi in the corridor, and then we sat. He was on a chair in front of the fireplace, the three of us were on couches on either side.

Obama knows my colleague Caren Bohan from his election campaign, and asked her about her son and what she was reading him.

He told us how his 11-year-old daughter, Malia, reads for herself these days, but said he was also reading her Yann Martel's best-selling novel "Life of Pi." A "wonderful book," he said, that was enthralling his daughter.

"There are whole chapters that really have to do with Hinduism, Christianity," he said. The proud father added, "There is a lot of philosophical stuff in there, but for some reason she is hanging in there."

But, "don't mean to use up your time on children's literature," he said, and we were down to business. "Who is starting?"

AT EASE WITH QUESTIONS

The interview had been pitched as a preview of the trip he is starting this week to Asia, and especially about China.

We worked through our carefully prepared questions, attempting the occasional follow-up but acutely conscious that time spent trying to pin down an answer was time eaten up.