You are a senior politician. How to stay sharp in public debates?

Here’s a clue. Don’t spend four years running away from difficult questions:

"Obama was out of practice and unprepared to be challenged. The White House had supposed that Obama’s forays into social media — town hall meetings with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the like — would replace traditional presidential communication. By relying on such venues, Obama’s argument skills atrophied, and he was ill-equipped to engage in old-fashioned give and take.

Milbank writes Obama "hasn’t held a full-fledged news conference at the White House since March" and "in lieu of taking hard questions, Obama has opted for gauzy, soft-focus interviews" with "Entertainment Tonight" and radio hosts like the "Pimp With The Limp."

"Tough questions are rare in one-on-one interviews, because Obama has more control over the topic — and the interviewer wants to be invited back"…

This is what happens when political spin destroys political substance – and the witless, fawning mass media go along with it, "because the interviewer wants to be invited back".