O'NEILL: The president said from the very beginning in all that we do we should put compassion first and it's a compassionate thing to recognize that people may have a longer duration of unemployment.
When Brett resigned and Eddie Murphy dropped off immediately thereafter, the firstthing that happened was that the Academy put Brian Grazer and me together on the phone.
In football the women's 2007 World Cup attracted an audience of nearly two million on BBC2, but the firstthing you hear in our office when we put the women's football on is that 'it's just not as good as the men's game because of the goalkeeping'.
"I have to stand back, I have to put the Northern Ireland interest first, I have to stand back and say what is the right thing for Belfast and Greater Belfast, " he added.
But was it wise of Mr Obama to put such a big thing, such a complicated thing, at the very heart of his presidency in his very first year, in the middle of America's worst recession for decades?