President Obama’s interview with a local reporter in Dallas, TX is making headlines for several of the president’s answers that appeared to be a little terse, at best.

In fact at the conclusion of the interview, President Obama told the reporter,  “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?”

What led to that statement was an exchange over the size of then candidate-Obama’s loss in Texas to Republican John McCain.

According to USA Today, the President said he lost the race by a “a few percentage points.” The reporter then interjected that it was actually 11%, which is more than a few percentage points. To that, the president said, “If what you’re telling me is that Texas is a conservative state, you’re absolutely right.”

I have been on the receiving end of a similar answer from the president. At the time, Obama was making a campaign swing through Virginia after securing the Democratic nomination. This stop was in Lebanon, VA. I was granted a short one-on-one interview with him. I started the session by asking him why he was campaigning in the heart of the 9th Congressional District, which is the ONLY district in Virginia that he lost to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary fight.

The numbers were actually astonishing. According to the US Election Atlas, Clinton won 84% of the vote to Obama’s 14%. Put another way, he only got 329 votes in that county.

To me, this question, which was asked with a smile, was a perfect opportunity for Senator Obama to make a joke about his showing, flash his broad smile, and then focus on his challenge to win over rural, white voters.

Instead, he looked at me stone-faced and launched into a rehearsed answer about the need to get out the vote. There was no humor. No smile. He almost seemed annoyed that I would ask the question.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of covering politics and from reporting the news, the quickest way to diffuse a situation is to smile. In those cases, self-deprecating humor is your friend. Whenever we’re having a lot of technical issues, everyone at home can tell that things aren’t going well. The natural inclination may be to furrow your brow, get flustered, and appear uncomfortable. But, I think it’s best to just smile, apologize for the error, and tell people we’ll do everything we can to fix it.

Then-candidate Obama and now President Obama doesn’t do that very often. I saw it 3 years ago and we’re seeing it again 3 years later.