Mope and Change

Losing the Senate “doesn’t make me mopey, it energizes me, because it means that this democracy’s working.” It took him until near the very end of his painfully meandering Castro-length post-shellacking press conference for a decent soundbite to emerge, but for once, the president didn’t disappoint:

Casually describing sweeping Republican election gains as “a good night,” President Barack Obama promised Wednesday to work with the GOP to “take care of business” but offered to make few changes to his priorities, principles, staff or style.

“There’s no doubt that Republicans had a good night,” the president said in his first press conference since Tuesday’s drubbing of Democrats. “It doesn’t make me mopey, it energizes me, because it means that this democracy’s working.”

As Jonathan S. Tobin adds at Commentary, “Arrogant Obama Has Learned Nothing:”

Last night as the country was absorbing the midterm election results, the New York Times reported that President Obama was “irritated” about the Democrats’ stunning defeat but that he did not consider the outcome to be a “repudiation” of himself or his administration. In response, some talking heads on the cable news networks suggested that given some time to reflect on events, he would take responsibility for a historic drubbing. They were wrong. When the president came out to face the public at his White House press conference this afternoon, it was clear that not only would he refuse to take blame for his party’s losses but was unchastened by the experience.

Though the press had wondered what adjective he would use to describe a defeat similar in magnitude to a 2010 midterm election that he dubbed a “shellacking,” his speech writers appeared not to have employed a thesaurus. The most he would say was that “Republicans had a good night.” But this unwillingness to acknowledge the magnitude of the outcome was merely the prelude to a lengthy display of presidential arrogance that made it clear he had no intention of taking the voters’ lack of confidence to heart or changing a thing about a presidency that the majority of Americans no longer regard favorably.

Rather than taking a page from Bill Clinton’s book and understanding that he had to adjust his policies and ideas to political reality, Obama seems to think he has no lessons to learn from the voters who broadly rejected the policies that he told us last month were on the ballot yesterday.

Asked several times by members of the press if he was prepared for genuine compromise, all he gave them was the usual boilerplate he’s been employing throughout his presidency about being willing to listen to Republicans if they come up with reasonable ideas. The only problem with that: he believes the only one with reasonable ideas is Barack Obama.

Which is why, as Steve Green tweets today:

Dear @TheDemocrats: You realize you’re going to have to play the same role Edith Wilson did after Woodrow’s stroke, right?

— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) November 5, 2014

Heh. Obama is in many ways — none of them good — the second coming of Wilson. Unfortunately, the left worked so hard to airbrush the disastrous first version out of history so badly, even they forgot the warnings of his administration.

Update: That’s an auditing, pal: Fox’s Ed Henry gets the death ray glaze from Obama for asking, “why not pull a page from the Clinton playbook and admit you have to make a much more dramatic shift in course for these last two years,” to salvage something from the wreckage of your administration.