‘obama finds his mojo’

Daily Beast (John Avlon): Almost lost in the debate over the tax cut compromise was a striking moment of defiance and self-definition from President Obama.

It came in the final five minutes of Tuesday’s afternoon press conference … when he started to push back and passionately defend his approach to the presidency.

The comments offered an uncensored look into his frustrations with armchair ideologues and his “North Star” philosophy of governing as a pragmatic progressive. It deserves a close reading and a place on the Obama administration highlight reel.

…..the president took this final question from Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal. “Some on the left have looked at this deal and questioned what your core values are … where is your line in the sand?”

That’s when No Drama Obama got pissed and presidential.

See article for press conference extracts

….This was not just raw frustration but a cold dose of perspective from the man in the Oval Office. It was a declaration of independence from the professional left and a statement of principle from a pragmatic progressive.

….. either you embrace the politics of problem-solving and get the best deal you can, or the people who are supposedly trying to help suffer from the functional neglect that comes from noble failure.

He was on a roll … he took aim at the self-appointed opinion-makers of the media – those who have the luxury to engage in arm-chair ideological debates, offering contradictory advice with equal conviction, while he has the responsibility of actually making decisions.

….And then he dropped the big hammer argument for faith in evolving toward a more perfect union.

“I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding.”

That’s when the air went out of the room and the president commanded the stage. Rarely does he get so raw and personal. Rarely does he invoke the specter of race. But there it was in a cold hard statement of eloquent fact that could have been scripted by Aaron Sorkin

….We are living in a time of grossly distorted fun-house mirror political debates, where the far-right thinks that the president is a Marxist and the far-left thinks that he is a Wall Street sellout. In this over-heated environment, the responsibilities of governing get downgraded as the country gets divided. It is time to start turning the tide.

When we look back at the history of the Obama administration, those five minutes just might be remembered as the moment when Obama started to get his Mojo back and set the tone for the next two years. The North Star approach to the presidency will allow him to reclaim the allegiance of the center while steering toward re-election in 2012.

Read full article here