President Barack Obama isn't wanting for any musician fans. But he's got another one, anyway, in Annie Lennox, who saw Obama's election to the nation's highest office long overdue.

"I'm thrilled of Barack's entry into presidential life has broken the glass ceiling for people of color," Lennox tells Spinner. "For African-Americans living in a society that so long has barred them from being in real positions of power, it's a huge relief."

"Of course you could say that Barack is more Bill Cosby than he is Malcolm X," she continues. "But hey guys, at least it's a step in the right direction. He is a balanced point right in the middle as far as I can see, and I think that's a great thing."

Lennox acknowledges that the newly-elected president faces some tremendous challenges, but she also emphasizes that people should give him the benefit of a doubt. "I'm hopeful, and I very much hope that he will be able to deliver some of the things he said he'll do," she says.

The singer, who is set to release a compilation of her solo music next month, has been vocal about various social issues, including AIDS. Most recently she protested the Israeli military action in Gaza, a view that drew a critical response from Yoram Dori, an adviser to Israel's president Shimon Peres, in a letter to the Jerusalem Post newspaper. As Lennox explains it, she was asking for a ceasefire to the conflict.

"I could understand very well that this is an incredibly complex issue," she says. "My children are half-Israeli. To say that I'm anti-Semitic in any way is an absolute insult to me and my family. I am absolutely pro-civilians in Israel and pro-civilians of Palestine. I want the new future generations to be brought up peacefully, [and] with peaceful coexistence. There has to be a better solution than a militaristic one."