Apparently he thought he was on Leno

Unfortunately, he was on 60 Minutes:

In a wide ranging interview broadcast Sunday night, Obama was pressed by Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes" for at times laughing or smiling while discussing the global economic crisis.

"You're sitting here. And you're laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems," Kroft told the president. "Are people going to look at this and say, 'I mean, he's sitting there just making jokes about money?' How do you deal with -- I mean: explain ... Are you punch-drunk?"

"No, no. There's gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day," Obama replied, with a laugh.

While I've lived by the same maxim since my pre-teens, I don't see laughing about point after point of problems that have Americans living on the edge and businesses dying - in front of millions of viewers and responding blithely as a norm - to be gallows humor, something that's best saved for the family living room at the end of the day.

It's just poor form, or lack of awareness, or failure to care, or drugs. You pick.

In other reports, he's botching his continued diplomacy-via-letter campaign by sending a heartening letter to the president of France. No, not Sarkozy, whom he briefed not ten days ago on current "White House discussions*." It was sent to his liberal predecessor, Jacque Chirac.

"letter" link via via Owen.
*Another must-read article. Obama will meet QE2 on 4/1/09, the day before the G20 conference in London. It's a pretty good bet he'll remember her name. But will he call her on the phone like he did Brown mere hours after meeting him at the White House, to chat?