While not known for his sense of humor, Bill Clinton did prove he had one when he visited The Daily Show recently. He’s been making the rounds of talk shows lately and his appearances have been rather serious. So, a touch of levity demanded by The Daily Show was a nice change of pace. He still displayed his intelligence and pit bull determination to make his points, but seeing him lean back in his chair, laughing out loud and clapping and even grabbing Stewart’s arm several times, felt at least new to the current Clinton repertoire. (Stewart couldn’t resist saying at the end of the interview “[Oh and] that really hurt my arm.”)

Interestingly, he didn’t really talk about The Clinton Global Initiative that he was ostensibly there to promote. Not that laser-focused promotion is even possible on most nights with Stewart.  The appearance was additionally crippled by the fact that there were obvious edits, that one can only guess was due to the fact that the interview must have run long, although Stewart did give an uncustomary double segment. It makes it harder to critique a guest when that occurs because you don’t really see the natural flow of conversation and whether they achieved their goals. In this instance, however, I do believe Clinton allowed himself to be lead through The Daily Show comic minefield more than he expected, as he obviously felt compelled to fully answer the questions posed.

At one point Stewart asked Clinton how much he would win by if HE was running today? “20 points… You’d pretty much crush ‘em! You’ve still got it!” And whatever “it” is, he does… and now with a bit of go-with-the-flow humor, too.

It was a squealing fawn fest as Barack sat with the ladies on a recent edition of The View. Although it does bring to mind whether he is running for the President of the United States or Prom King. As usual, he handled himself beautifully, an almost perfect mix of humor and import, physicality and distance. Not only did he charm the panel with that natural charisma, but he took everything they threw at him in stride, including a lengthy barrage of questions about the controversial Reverend Wright, in which he remained calm, collected and thoughtful.

At one point, Joy Behar asked him about being related to Brad Pitt and amid the hoots and hollers, he commented that “Pitt got the better looking side of the gene pool.” To which Barbara Walters said “we think you’re very sexy.” Obama coolly feigned embarrassment, fanning his face with his hand. Oh, please!

Even right wing panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck found herself praising Obama’s 2004 DNC speech and gushing about how it inspired her, to which he said, “That was a pretty good speech.” Proving yet again, he’s got the aw shucks, self-deprecating thing down to a science at this point. Behar later asked if he’s tough enough to survive the republican “swiftboat” attacks that would certainly come out in the general election. To which Obama replied, “You know, I’m a pretty tough… I’m skinny, but I’m tough.”

At the end of the day though it was a “safe” appearance, at time echoing the now classic SNL parodies of press softball questions. There was not a lot of new information here, but Obama is so adept and comfortable with his smooth demeanor, that he makes it all look so easy.