By JACKIE CALMES

Published: December 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s news conference on Friday was full of banter and holiday wishes, in keeping with the year-end White House ritual. But Mr. Obama’s demeanor and words were often downbeat, leaving no doubt that the gathering was not, as he said at the beginning, “the most wonderful news conference of the year.”
<snip>
Mr. Obama, from his opening remarks, stressed the economy’s signs of growth, and he said that building on such progress is “going to be where I focus all of my efforts in the year ahead.” But while he could cite specifics about improving economic indicators on employment, growth and deficits, he did not give details about his agenda, even as he said that “2014 needs to be a year of action.”

The impression conveyed was of a president as manager, one without much of an agenda or the political wherewithal for new initiatives that could make it through a Congress where Republicans are more determined than ever to thwart him before next year’s midterm elections. He ends the first year of his second term — typically the best chance for policy achievements before lame-duck status sets in — with his approval ratings having hit a record low and many Democrats disillusioned by the controversies over the health insurance law and disclosures about widespread intelligence surveillance of phone records.
<snip>
Mr. Obama volunteered his disappointment that Congress did not pass a law to require background checks for gun buyers, a priority after the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., a year ago. Yet he made no suggestion of reviving that cause in the face of opposition from the gun lobby and lawmakers in both parties.

A year ago, administration officials defended the relative paucity of new ideas for the second term by saying that the president would be putting into effect his first term’s achievements, chiefly his hallmark Affordable Care Act. Yet on Friday, Mr. Obama was once again forced to acknowledge that his administration had bungled the Oct. 1 introduction of the website where Americans shop for the health insurance that the law requires them to have, even as he boasted of improvements since then.

There are, he said, “a couple million people, maybe more, who are going to have health care on Jan 1.”

“And that is a big deal,” he added. “That’s why I ran for this office.”

“It’s not that I don’t engage in a lot of self-reflection here,” Mr. Obama said at another point about the health insurance program. “I promise you, I probably beat myself up, you know, even worse than” reporters do.

“But,” he said, “I’ve also got to wake up in the morning and make sure that I do better the next day and that we keep moving forward. And when I look at the landscape for next year, what I say to myself is: We’re poised to do really good things.”
**************************

The NYT, ever the water boy for this President. How about the greatest challenge to this President being his own incompetence? It's hardly the opposition from the Republicans. They've been easy.