WASHINGTON — Feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders, a weary President Obama says his fondest dream is getting a chance to take a stroll by himself away from the White House.
Obama — who rides in motorcades, jets on Air Force One and is under constant guard — says he’d take a solo hike across the National Mall, if only the Secret Service would give him the chance.
“I would go take a walk,” the president said Friday on “Live with Kelly and Michael” when asked the one thing he’d like to do if only he could.
“I would just walk out this gate. I might walk out to the Lincoln Memorial, sit on there. Maybe I’d wander around and find myself at a little outdoor cafe or something and just sit and watch people go by. The thing you miss most about being president is anonymity,” a wistful Obama said.
But at least the constraints of the White House haven’t turned first daughters Malia and Sasha into spoiled brats, Obama said.
“We were worried — are they going to start having an attitude? They have just remained respectful kind, considerate people,” the proud first pop boasted.
Malia Obama, who turns 16 on July 4, went to her first prom — but the president wouldn’t ID the lucky young man who was her date.
“I think this is all classified information,” he quipped.
“It’s fair to say that the first time you see your daughter in heels is a little bit jarring. She’s lovely. She’s beautiful,” he added.
The president also said he doesn’t consider himself “too intimidating” to suitors who may have an interest in his daughters, adding that he saves his aggression for the basketball court.
Opponents, he said, “will tell you that they don’t let me win because I trash-talk them so bad when I give them a whupping that it’s not worth it to them,” Obama said.
He credited First Lady Michelle for raising the girls properly — and made it clear who wears the pants in the Obama household.
“I’m labor, she’s management. I do what she tells me to do and it works,” he admitted.
Obama also declared that it was heredity, not the pressures of the job, that turned his dark hair gray. His maternal grandfather went gray by 30, he said.