BRYAN PRESTON live-blogged Obama’s press conference. “He’s coming across as hectoring, defensive, and not well acquainted with the facts or the policy.” Later: “Well, that was pretty bad, the kind of presser Napoleon might have given after Waterloo.”
Related: “He has met the enemy, and they are him.”
UPDATE: A Wall Street reader emails:
Obama’s petulance sank stocks.
Stocks were euphorically higher most of today, thanks to the unexpectedly broad tax deal the administration hammered out with the Republicans. But during his press conference, Obama’s clear anger and call to unwind the deal in 2 years opened a trap door under prices, sending them to a negative finish. We had hope, and then it changed.
If this deal gave people the belief that Obama might grow in office, the press conference probably deep-sixed that.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Get that man a teleprompter! “Surely, if President Obama had been scripted this afternoon he wouldn’t have let loose with such a self-revelatory rant at the end of his presser. To this point, the hallmark of Obama has been his bloodlessness and lack of emotion, in almost any circumstance. North Korea could nuke Seoul and he’d come out and coolly pronounce it a regrettable event that proves we need to ratify New START. We’ve learned today that what really gets under his skin and makes him boil is criticism, and especially criticism from progressives. . . . We got a good look behind the curtain for a moment this afternoon, and it wasn’t pretty.”
MORE: The 2008 Obama Would Denounce the 2010 Obama.
STILL MORE: Megan McArdle: “So why are progressives so enraged? I’m not seeing a lot of complaints about austerity; rather, they simply seem to be mad that the Democrats were not able to thwart the GOP entirely. As Clive Crook says, ‘But is it really good politics for the party to keep telling the electorate that raising taxes on the rich is the one thing, in the end, it stands for? That nothing else comes close in the party’s list of priorities? Because this is the message that comes across.’ . . . Both sides, of course, are exposing themselves as the rank hypocrites they are on fiscal priorities. To say I despair for the financial future of our government is too weak.”
MORE STILL: Reader Kim Sommer writes: “Forget the 3am phone call. He’s not even ready for a 3pm press conference.”