Last night Barack Obama was on a 60 Minutes interview with no coaching, no teleprompter, and no notes; and he beautifully answered questions regarding the challenges in coming into his administration. (click post to view video)

Amongst other things, we learned that he’s been reading a whole lot of briefing papers and that he does have someone from his campaign sitting in on Bush meetings to help ease the transition.

As for his actual approach to future crisis, particularly regarding economics, Obama was nothing short of entirely pragmatic. His approach to policy showed a high level of civic thinking: he refused to criticize many failed Bush policies on a counterfactual basis.

As for our specific focus on Obama, his policies towards the auto industry were particularly interesting. It’s very, very clear that as president, Barack Obama will not let Ford or GM fail. He stated that “for the auto industry to completely collapse would be a disaster in this kind of environment.”

The same line of careful consideration (in terms of issue context, historical precedence, etc.) was seen throughout the entire interview. We suggest you watch the whole thing yourself.