Is media critique? He can be rambling and tentative, but he’s quite cutting when he feels the question is stupid. In response to Tim Russert seeking “pledges” from the candidates to not “allow” Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, Obama snips, “All of us are committed to Iran not having nuclear weapons, so we could potentially short-circuit this.”

–Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.