Obama at Presser Takes Questions from Helen Thomas and Blogger at Huff Post -- Says He's Looking at Media Ban on Showing Coffins

By: Greg Mitchell President Obama took his first question from Helen Thomas as a press conference tonight -- and from Sam Stein at Huffington Post, perhaps the first blogger to get called on in a primetime presser.

Stein asked about torture policy going forward and is anyone above the law? Obama said U.S. would not torture and "no one above the law" and can be prosecuted -- but "generally speaking" he is "interested in looking forward, not backward."

In general, the presser revealed a changing of the guard. Almost all of the questions came from reporters under 40 with few old standbys in attendance.

Obama got another good question at presser : Will he overturn the military policy of not allowing media to cover caskets of soldiers coming home from war zones? After all, Joe Biden called for that years ago. Obama replied: "Your question is timely. We got a report that four American servicemen died in Iraq today....With respect to the policy of opening up media, we are in the process of reviewing those policies with the Department of Defense...so I don't want to give you an answer right now until completed." Punt?

Also asked about timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Lot of talk about Iraq but what about the other war zone? Obama said that unlike in Iraq, where we have seen some hopeful political progress, not so in Afghanistan. Need to stop Taliban. Mentions 9/11 and meeting families of victims recently. Will never let al-Qaeda operate freely. So sounds like: Withdrawal a long, long way off.

Helen Thomas, one of the few famous faces, asked if he knew of any countries in the Middle East that already have nuclear weapons. Obviously, she meant: Israel (which reportedly has them). He said he wouldn't want to say but any escalation now would be bad. She interrupted him twice in mid-question, pressing the point. And at very end.