Barack on "Nightline"

Hotline:

Obama sat down with ABC's Tapper for an interview that aired on "Nightline":

On his WH campaign: "If you hadn't done it before it exercises muscles you never known you've had."

Asked if his speech wasn't insensitive to Musharraf's position: "I think that we should provide, and I state explicitly in the speech, all the support that we can to President Musharraf taking the right actions. But what we can't do is simply allow al Qaeda in Pakistan how it previously operated in Afghanistan."

More: "You've got people who are responsible for 3,000 American deaths in Pakistan and that continue to raid and attack our soldiers in Afghanistan and make it more difficult to stabilize that country. And that is an unacceptable situation."

Asked if the speech is a result of his spat with HRC: "First of all, I'm not so good I can whip up a speech like this in a week. We've had this on the calendar for a very long time."

More: "The story that comes out of this speech may unduly focus on that aspect on what you put 'looks muscular -- be willing to go after terrorists where they live' -- but keep in mind the other points of the speech where as important if not more important. If we don't win over the hearts and minds of 1.3 billion Muslims in this world it's going to be very difficult to win the long war against extremism" (ABC, 8/1).

He also sat down with CBS' Attkisson:

Asked what would trigger an invasion: "If there is actual intelligence that, for example, the way al Qaeda were gathering in 2005, than unlike the Bush administration I would act to try to take them out."

Asked how he fights the "naive" perception: "I'm less concerned with fighting images, I'm concerned with getting policy right" ("Evening News," 8/1).