President Obama said Thursday that the racial firestorm that led to the ouster of a black Agriculture Department official was a “phony controversy” generated by the media. He said his administration overreacted by forcing her out.

In an interview on ABC’s daytime talk show “The View,” Obama said the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod shows racial tensions still exist in America.

“There are still inequalities out there. There’s still discrimination out there,” Obama said. “But we’ve made progress.”

Obama defended the $862 billion stimulus package, even as he was reminded that his administration said unemployment wouldn’t rise above 8 percent. The unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in June.

On Afghanistan, co-host Barbara Walters asked the president, “Why don’t we get out?”

Obama reminded Walters that he promised in the campaign to wind down the war in Iraq and refocus a strategy in Afghanistan that was “not working.”

Afghanistan is still “the epicenter of terrorism targeting the U.S.,” he said. “We’ve got to finish the job that we started.”

Not all the questions dealt with politics and policy. Obama said he knew actress Lindsay Lohan was in jail and ducked a question about actor Mel Gibson.

Obama also said he wasn’t invited to the July 31 wedding of Chelsea Clinton in Rhinebeck, N.Y.

But perhaps the biggest revelation was that the BlackBerry Obama fought so hard to keep at the start of his presidency hasn’t turned out to be that much after all. Because his e-mail traffic could be subject to eventual requests for disclosure, Obama said the 10 people who have his coveted e-mail address are cautious with their messages.

“Nobody wants to send me the real juicy stuff,” he said. “It’s all very official.”

The program was taped Wednesday in New York. He is the first sitting president to appear on a daytime talk show, according to ABC.

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